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« Letter Re: Space-Efficient Shelving Systems for Retreat Storage |Main| Note from JWR: » Monday December 14 2009Survival Tools, by SJHI’ve read many articles regarding “survival “ and “preparedness” topics, my conclusion is that an important area has been missed. Lots of planning seems to focus on food storage, water, supplies, and so on, yet I have not seen or read anything about “survival tools -- how to be prepared for anything mechanically”. So after considering this topic for several years, I’ve decided to introduce my own topic as far as tools for the self-reliant individual. My background includes 30 years of mechanical equipment repair on automobiles and trucks/trailers to heavy construction equipment including dozers and cranes. Having been exposed to working independently while on the road performing field work, you soon develop a survival sense that allows you to think through repairs and situations, even before you actually arrive at the work site. Planning as we all know is the key factor, when considering what tools and equipment are necessary.
Lastly, yet most important of all, will be the tools necessary to keeping your equipment up and running. Transportation is critical as for preparedness situations, as we all know. Once you have determined your needs, your spares, supplies, think through what tools will be required. For example, to replace disk brake pads, you need to remove the tire/wheel assembly, compress the caliper, unbolt the caliper, install the pads, and reverse the process to put it back together. Just for a simple job like this, you will need a lug wrench for the lug nuts, a large C-clamp to compress the caliper and a wrench or socket to remove the caliper. You need to sit down and consider what will be required in whatever contingency or jobs may arise, and how to deal with it. I have a list of tools that, over the years, I have found will suffice for most basic repairs. These tools are carried in what I call my “road box”. This road box has been with me a long time. Even though the original box has long since rusted away, most of the tools have lasted. This set of tools is my choice based on my needs as well as the fact that you may have to improvise to get the job done. Here is the list that we can call our “survival tool set”.
As I mentioned before, this set of tools has been my choice over the years to keep things going. I’ve changed oil and filters with the addition of a universal-type filter wrench, replaced spark plugs, changed fuel filters, replaced brake pads, repaired broken wires, plugged leaks on everything from fuel to water and air as necessary. I’ve improvised wiring for a trailer to keep the lights going and replaced a busted heater hose a few times. The size of my tool box is approximately 9” x 15” x 13” tall and there is room for more inside. Another consideration should be the need for “metric” tools, depending on you individual needs. Many vehicles today are metric and will require you to adjust your tool inventory as such. This tool set will also cover a great deal of home/shelter/retreat repairs if you again plan what you may have to do. An example would be with the addition of a pipe wrench you would be able to tackle plumbing repairs such as cleaning a water well pump strainer from debris. As mentioned in the beginning, plan for all sorts of mechanical problems, consider what tools are required and adjust your inventory accordingly. If you carefully think all situations out thoroughly, your tool supply should be able to handle most anything that happens to arise. Now to really complete your tool supply , you need to consider what special requirements that you may need. How about jacks as a beginning point, you should have a hydraulic bottle jack and/or what I call a “farm jack” included in your tool supply. The bottle jack depending on its lifting capacity can solve many “lifting” situations. It will raise a vehicle including trucks/trailers, jack up a building if necessary. The farm type jack is versatile because it can “push” or “pull” as well as lift/raise. So with the easy addition of these two items you have the ability to raise, jack, push, pull and even if necessary use in some sort of improvised rescue situation. As I mentioned before that a 12VDC test light can assist in 12V repairs but the ideal choice would be a “multi-meter”, they are available everywhere from the basic variety to the extravagant type. Let your budget guide you on this, bottom line is that they are indispensable for troubleshooting various electrical problems. These types of meters can test DC (low voltage) as well as AC (high voltage).The important thing to remember is “know” how to use it and what you are working with. Obviously if you need electrical training check out your community college for a class on basic electrical skills/repairs. My personal favorite add on equipment would be an air compressor. With this addition to your tool “cache” you will be able to air up tires, perhaps inflatable boats, blow out wet items, run pneumatic tools and the possibilities go on and on. Compressors come in all types and sizes, my favorite is the small electric variety, I used this type for the above mentioned as well as to run pneumatic nailers for remodeling work. There are all types of tools available for drilling, grinding and cutting. Again think about your needs then plan out the tools required. Tools are just the beginning, you may need some type of mechanical training but common sense will cover most of the items that will need to be repaired. Shop manuals are really the key to preparedness, if you have the information required all should proceed according to your plan. Again as in all preparedness plans, look at all the “what if” scenarios, to determine what tools you will need to handle what needs to be repaired. « Two Letters Re: Long Term Food Storage Package Now Sold at COSTCO |Main| Note from JWR: » Tuesday November 17 2009Lessons Leaned from a Wildfire Evacuation, by Daniel in Montana
It was a gorgeous Saturday night, Sept. in Montana's mountains the weather was hanging onto summer's 70 degree temperatures, warm and dry. Working all day at the hospital and finishing some of my home preparedness projects gave me a satisfaction and sense of accomplishment. Time to relax, I sat down, put my feet up and was sipping my week's end treat, a cold beer. I phoned my friend, “Brett” to finalize our plans to butcher a few of his farm animals tomorrow. He was finishing a Bible reading with his boys and was putting them to bed, and would call me back in a few minutes. It was quite strange, as soon as I hung up, the phone immediately rang. It wasn't Brett, it was “Eric.” His voice had a tone and panic I'd never heard before. Through his hollering and shouting I gathered a forest fire had just erupted a mile from his home. He was pleading for me to get to his parents' home and tell them he is being evacuated! He was about to loose his house, horses, tools, everything. His call ended any type of relaxing for this Saturday night. Eric and I have been friends for years. We live about 30 miles from each other. His parents and I are only 5 miles apart. He was unable to phone them. They have discontinued their land line, living tucked away on the side of a hill, far in the country and far from cell service. We of like minds prefer it that way don't we? My job in the health center was to train staff to respond to emergencies. We prepared for heart attacks, missing children, chemical spills, the usual. I am also a martial art's instructor and former fighter. Eric's call had ignited my fight or flight response dumping adrenaline into my body. My mind was racing, hundreds of thoughts and ideas all at once. I had just let my guard down. It was my time to relax, but my friend needed help. His request, and my urgency was to notify his parents, get people to the scene! “Should I ride my Harley”? It would be quicker than my truck, but the thought of being in a smoky fire on a motorcycle wasn't appealing. I'd ridden it before during a bad fire season a few years ago, the memory of the smoke stinging my eyes and my lungs burning made my decision easy. I ran to my truck. Oh adrenaline, how amazing you are..more thoughts flooded my mind, simultaneous, in a moment, “grab my boots, Carhartts, jacket, chain saw and Pulaski to fight the fire. I'll need my cell phone and lights, No, don't waste time get going! Hurry! I can always come back for my gear. It's only a few miles. Got to get to his parents! The fire was at least 30 miles from my home. My two daughters were safe, my wife was out for the night, the animals were all in their pens, go now, go fast!” I blasted off in my truck. My mission, my friend's request was clear, notify his parents. I took off wearing a pair of worn out sneakers, blue jeans and a T-shirt, no wallet, no ID, no phone. I raced my pick up to Eric's parents' home. “I can come back for my gear” disappoints me to this day. Completing my mission caused another families' Saturday night to change quickly, crying, disbelief and shock. It took them an eternity to accept this, get dressed and get on the road to help Eric. I followed them at 80 mph for the next 30 miles. Of course, we got stopped for speeding but the considerate officer knew of the fire situation and let us go, no ticket. I hope he reads this. I'd like to thank him. As the miles passed, the outline of the mountain tops were easily seen glowing a dull red. Smoke was now thick from the burning trees. I shut the truck's air vents. As we turned off the main highway I was suddenly cut off by a frantic heard of deer, several horses and a few dogs. They were crisscrossing the old road running wild. The fire was spreading quickly. I wondered, what I was getting into? This isn't safe. This really happening!” My friend needed help, there was no hesitation, only my commitment. The country dirt roads were not made for the traffic created from fire and pumper trucks, pick ups and trailers. The dust from the vehicles choked any attempts at normal breathing. I wrapped a bandanna around my nose and mouth but they were already dry and burning. It was quite dark but the glow from the fire and headlights created an eerie radiance. Any form of light was now encased in an evil combination of smoke and dust. Nothing was seen clear. Nothing was for certain. My Saturday had changed so quickly I couldn't keep up. My thoughts drifted to how valuable my gear would have been. Great planning and preparedness on my part. I never drove back to gather my equipment. I even have it organized for this type of grab and go situation. Wondering if the extra time spent would have been worth it? Saving those few minutes and racing off could prove costly. My instincts told me to drive my truck. My gas tank was rarely below ¾ full, and true to my nature, I'd even topped it off after work. I had a full tank, (no wallet). I always stocked my first aide bag, pistol, extra mags, leather work gloves, 120 ft. of rope, jumper cables and a spot light in my truck. I plugged in the spot light, holstered my pistol, put on my gloves, grabbed the first aid bag and rope and set them on the front seat. I lit up the spot light and in this smoky confusion of animals, firefighters, trucks, trailers and flashing lights, I found Eric. He was standing in a grass field, sweating, dirty and holding two of his five horses. I jumped out. Eric was in shock, my friend and brother needed help and lots of it! I used my 120 foot rope and several of us banded together forming a human fence. We were able to coral two more frightened horses. It took several attempts and over an hour to trailer those two. We roped off others and tied them to the trailer Like us, they were scared. confused and running on adrenaline One horse, was cut and bleeding bad. Her chest and legs sliced open, looked like she tangled with barb wire. I released my right hand from the rope and rested it on my pistol, assessing her, wondering? One lady was standing alone in the middle of the dirt road, trucks and trailers driving around her. I grabbed my first aide bag and went to her. She was stiff, didn't speak, didn't answer my questions. I checked her, no signs of injury, B/P and 02 sats were within normal limits, pulse was racing, whose wasn't? No cuts or bruises, shock. I drove her down two miles to the small country town, Lakeside where others had gathered by the Red Cross station and were sharing information and horror stories. I could hear conversations of those who needed to get gas at this time of night, without success. Most stations were closed and the one that was open was choked with long lines, and taking credit cards only. Beautiful 350 Turbo powered Cummings trucks sitting, going nowhere, without fuel. Frustrated drivers, swearing, pounding their fists on their hoods as the fire threatened their homes. One lady was standing in shorts and a tank top, great for the warmth of the day but more than exposed to numerous dangers in this situation. Her home was directly in the fire's path. She had called the police prior to attempting to go to her home. They told her not to worry she would not be evacuated. By the time she got home, the fire had changed directions and she was not permitted to go near her home. Eric had made several phone calls and other friends arrived. Some were quite prepared, some not. With his friends there to help him, all Eric could do was stand in disbelief, mumbling, “I've lost everything. I've lost everything.” I held both his arms, looked him square in the face and reassured him he hadn't lost everything. “There still is time. Look, your house is right here, the fire's still up on the mountain top. What can we get out of it? What's first?” He didn't answer. He ran off to get a chain saw. What are his priorities? What did he want out of his home? If his house did burn down what is important to him? We may only have this one chance. How can I help? What do I get for him? birth certificates, insurance papers, cash, guns? Where is all this? Then amongst all the fear and shock, unexpectedly, an angel gently touched my arm. It was Eric's mom. She was a calm in all this confusion. Her and Eric's dad are older, not in the prime of health and took a little longer to find us. His dad, Charles may not be in his youth but he sure proved his efficiency on the front end loader. Charles took up his position on Eric's loader and immediately started pushing over smaller trees and brush, dragging them away from the house and work shop. He was also building 10 ft high mounds of dirt around the house at the same time. He was amazing! Efficient, productive, we were making gains now! We were on the offensive! We rallied behind their calm wisdom and experience. All too sudden, it was quite, very quiet. The front end loader stalled while dragging a tree and wouldn't start. After several attempts to restart it, the battery died. At this moment I felt the weight of the Red Sea crash in on me. I felt the fatigue. I was exhausted. I couldn't breath. My knees, ankles and feet were throbbing, the past few hours walking, running and tripping in unfamiliar fields and dirt roads had taken its toll. My boots were now worth millions. “My boots, my gear, Wish I would have....wait! I always carry jumper cables in my truck! I hobbled to it and eased into the front seat. Shifting and pushing the clutch sent waves of pain through my battered ankles and legs. I drove through the field right up to the Bobcat and popped open my hood. Charles had been trying to restart it and grabbed my jumper cables. In a few short minutes, we had her running again! Guess I wasn't that sore after all and Charles didn't seem quite as old. As I moved my truck out of Charles' path, the headlights caught an outline of Eric at the base of a tree. He found his chainsaw and had started to cut down the larger trees close to his home and shop. Charles could push them away from the house once they were on the ground and the fire would not have any fuel. Great idea. Eric was halfway through a 60 ft. Tamarack and found his chainsaw had no fuel either. He ran out of gas and had none stored. Vehicles, people and animals all racing in the glowing dark and now a 60 ft. pine tree ready to come down at any time. We had an experienced logger, a Stihl chain saw but no fuel. This was very dangerous and we created it. Tired, thirsty and frustrated, I lit up the tree with my spot light and parked my truck sideways on the dirt road blocking any traffic from the North. Others stood on the South side and stopped any flow from their direction. Charles inched the Bobcat closer and closer and was able to push over the 60 ft. danger without incident. We all sighed in relief. The whole night was filled with events like this, success mixed with failure. You never experienced any one emotion for more than a few minutes. The burning fire created a constant urgency in everything we did. The eerie backdrop of a mountain glowing red with an uncontrolled fire wouldn't let us rest. Time changed that night. It would slow and pause for a moment, then by the time you blinked the smoke out of your eyes and it sped up creating situations and forcing immediate decisions throughout the night. There were times when I was watching all this unfold, far away from the fire, danger and confusion. There were times I was in the middle of everything, eyes stinging, scared, tired, wanting to do more for my friend. Lessons learned: I'd like to thank Mr. Rawles and your blog page. I've been a regular for almost two years now. It has been very valuable to read it and your books. You have given sound advice and enhanced my sense of preparedness. Because of your mission people were better off in a Montana wild fire. I hope and pray similar situations never come again but I feel it is only a matter of time. When the next one occurs, I will be even better prepared and will react with more efficiency thanks to you and others like us. Since I initially started writing this our weather has changed. In a 48 hour period it has gone from sunny and 70 to 4 inches of snow, icy roads cold, and minus 4 degrees at night. God Bless us all. - Daniel in Montana « Three Letters Re: How Much Food Storage is Biblically Justified? |Main| Jim's Quote of the Day: » Sunday November 8 2009Letter Re: An Overwhelmed Newbie, Catching Up at Prepping
Mr. Rawles, I've already bought a food dehydrator and meat grinder both very inexpensively on Craigslist and a wheat grinder from Lehman's The other thing I've done (following your wife's guidance), is to buy two copies of Carla Emery's book [The Encyclopedia of Country Living]. I've dived into that book, head first. The Memsahib was right. What an amazing reference! Owning that book is like having a country aunt on "speed dial" that you can turn to, to ask just about any question about the old-fashion ways of doing things. Since we are members of both Sam's Club and Costco (discount memberships, through my husband's work, and my school district) we plan to buy most of our bulk foods at those places. So I'm getting a copy of your ["Rawles Gets You Ready"] prepping course. I'm sure that will fill in some gaps that Carla Emery didn't cover, like details on food shelf lives and modern food packaging. Most important, it is perfect for people like us that want to be able to stock up [on food storage], just [shopping] at supermarkets or the Big Box outlets like Sam's [Club] and Costco. OBTW, my husband devoured your novel. It kept him up 'til 3 A.M.! We are selling off our "fluff stuff" on eBay and Craigslist, to get cash for prepping. So far, we've sold my collectibles and some vintage clothes, our Bose sound system, my husband's stamp collection, and more than 200 music CDs, in batches of 10 to 15, [sorted] by genre. We dropped our dish television contract--no time for that sort of time-wasting and mind-numbing entertainment! Next will be selling our Nautique ski boat. Fishing will replace water skiing as our summer hobby, and we can do that from the shore or from kayaks or inflatables that will fit on our Excursion's roof rack. The side bonus is that selling the boat and trailer is that clears one whole section of our garage. That will surely be filled with prepping shelves, shortly. My husband has a source for used industrial-weight shelving and pallet racks for about the price of scrap metal. (They buy shelving from failed companies.) Thank You, Mr. Rawles, for extracting our heads from the sand. Semper Paratus and Semper Fidelis - Jessica and Ron, in the Non-Amish Part of Ohio (Wishing I lived in Kidron, next door to Lehman's!) « Economics and Investing: |Main| Letter Re: Retreat Commo and Monitoring Suggestions from a Ham Operator » Tuesday November 3 2009Letter Re: Some Advise of Starting Wood and Charcoal Fires
Hello Mr. Rawles; « Letter Re: Comments of Storing Coffee and Grinding Whole Wheat Flour |Main| Note from JWR: » Saturday October 31 2009The Dumpster List, by InfoRodeo
Because of our financial constraints, aggravated by the economy and rural area we now live, my family cannot afford to own a second “retreat” home, nor do we have much land on which to build a shed or store much of anything. As a boy, my parents didn’t have much money, and through a mix of my dad’s “fix it or make do” attitude, the scout motto “be prepared” and my newfound need for better frugality, I’ve made a kind of checklist that every non-food purchase my wife and I make must go through, and it’s jokingly called the Dumpster list. Each point of the dumpster list should be met as well as possible, if that point is applicable. The list helps us stretch our dollars, limit our output of refuse, and choose items that are easier to transport and maintain should we be forced to evacuate or relocate during an emergency event. DURABILITY. I try to purchase things that are built strong and proven strong. I buy denim or rip-stop pants. A lot of items I purchase are “military surplus” or Mil-spec items, because they are meant to take rough treatment and last a long time. Sometimes an item can be made stronger/more resistant/durable for a small charge. Having some sort of puncture-stop material added to our bike tires or spending the extra money for some sort of hard-shell case for a piece of essential gear would be examples of adding durability. I don’t include “Price” in the checklist because I’ve learned (contrary to what my parents tried to teach me) that most of the time, paying more for a high quality item saves more money in the long run than buying a cheap item, which have to be repaired or replaced it frequently. As long as we aren’t charging it to a credit card (or creating other debt) and are living within our means, I try not to think much about price. We also do most of our non-immediate shopping on the internet, because it is easier to find exactly what we need than making do with what we find at the local hardware or department store, and the prices (including shipping) are much better. By running our potential purchases through the Dumpster list, we’ve actually modified some other areas of our life, and it has helped us to generate less trash, have less blinking-light/electronic noise toys for our children, and I haven’t had to buy any new clothes in over a year now. Though I thought there would be more potential for “hard work” as a result, we’ve found that by being more picky about our purchases, as well as giving them proper maintenance, we’ve actually had a lot less break-downs to deal with and our “free” time has actually increased. « Economics and Investing: |Main| Letter Re: A Safe Method for Connecting Home Backup Generators » Tuesday October 27 2009Letter Re: Perspectives on Roughing It and Covert Car Camping
My dad kicked me out when I was 19 so I lived in my car for a year on the streets and got pretty good at it. I'm now married in my mid-40s and have ran several successful businesses and doing well for myself. But, I'm still a cheapie at heart. I absolutely hate paying for motels. When I travel I spend lots of money on food and entertainment, but I hate paying nightly for a bed to sleep on. About 10 years ago I bought nondescript 1994 mini-van Plymouth Voyager and converted it into what I call the Stealth Camper. This small "domestic" looking vehicle comfortably sleeps my wife and I. I built a plywood bed on a welded frame about 16 inches off the floor taking up the entire back giving huge storage space underneath. There are lower access panels and removable sections for daytime use of space. My wife likes extra comfy so with 6" foam rubber mattress it's actually more comfy than our home bed. All back windows have solid black fabric, velcro attached so from outside looks like dark tinted (but they are actually opaque). Velrco allows for easy peaking out in any direction. Behind front seats is black opaque fabric so even with lights on in the back, no light can be seen outside of vehicle. I built in a toilet (mainly for her), but I found I prefer to pee in a wide mouth gallon Gatorade bottle. I also installed inside snap lock latches for the back door, back sliding door, and both front doors. If somebody tries to break in while we are sleeping I will have plenty of time to take action. The only thing the Stealth Camper doesn't have is a built in shower. I've come up with a design for a simple roll up sitting enclosure for a gravity solar heated shower which I'll build later on. Keep your stealth vehicle clean and well kept. Keep yourself well kept, shaven, clean. Short hair is easier to keep clean than long hair. During warm weather every 2 days buy a shower at a gym or truck stop, or go swimming. I'm told there now are national gym memberships so that is probably your best bet if you travel around a lot. Cold weather you can stretch out a shower every 3 to 5 days. Also camping solar showers work great away from town. Or, to use a solar shower in town; park your vehicle in self serve car wash and give yourself a shower while wearing a bathing suite. I've had few strange looks over the years but no hassles. In between showers give yourself a morning clean up with a wet warm rag courtesy bathroom sink at McDonald's or gas station. For the first couple of years we would leave the side windows hinged open for ventilation while we slept. This worked fine. But because of security issues we now keep them locked shut, as I'd cut ventilation ducts into the van floor. The front windows have exterior rain guards attached so we usually leave them cracked 1/2 inch for cross-ventilation since the rain guards visually hide the open windows. From the outside, the van looks all sealed up and vacant. I also have installed a low RPM (quiet) 12VDC fan from a junk computer to provide extra ventilation on the floor vent with on a low/high switch when needed. Open windows are a dead give away of vehicle occupancy! Our favorite time for Stealth Camper traveling is in the cool seasons. Especially if its raining; minimal outside human activity and I've never been roused during a rainy night. I sleep deeply when it's cool and when it rains! We've been roused a few times and learned a few tricks... #1. Never sleep with an empty gas tank. We have California license plates. When I'm not in California I try to park where other "out of state" transient domestic vehicles park; and that's motels / hotel parking lots. Or at least near motel and hotels. I've stayed plenty of times at rest areas without problems but I've heard others tell of many problems. Warm nights are the worst security times, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Lots of human / kids / young adult and loud activity all night long. People mulling around coming and going. Motel, apartment and young persons areas are terrible. On these worst nights my favorite places to park: Cold especially rainy nights non Friday and Saturday nights are my favorite with minimal human / noise activities. These are my favorite and I'll often park in these areas in no particular order: I have but never liked parking in: I always prefer to park in near the far end of a mass of other vehicles. When parking on a street for the night always try to park with a car behind you (preferably larger vehicle than you). Never park at an end of a block or at an intersection. This way you'll be less likely to be hit from behind by a drunken wayward vehicle. Also your vehicle will visually not stand out. Don't park on the end of a parking lot for the same reasons. Don't park anywhere near "all night businesses", bars, liquor stores, etc. Or, anywhere kids hang out, skateboard, kid parks. For quiet night, stay away from main roads and freeways. My stories of strange situations... When I was 19 living in my car (before I bought the Stealth Camper) one night I was parked end of a dead end road. Police knocked on my window waking me. Apparently nosy neighbors reported me. I told police my Dad kicked me out. He told me to park behind Montgomery Wards and I was never bothered again. I parked there for about 6 months. After that I got permission to park in a friends driveway for the next six months. With Stealth Camper, one night I was parked on a country road shoulder (I was only vehicle there). Police pulled up behind and shined light for 10 minutes or so then left. I assume they ran my plates. I don't think they knew vehicle was occupied. I try not to park on deserted roads; it just makes you an out of place target. Always park where other vehicles park for the night. One hot night in Santa Rosa, California I parked in front of a residential house with all the vent windows open (dead giveaway of occupancy). I was hot, uncovered, and nearly naked. Somebody was mulling around the vehicle with a high powered flashlight trying to peak in the windows and window vents. I guess he he got a view. He yelled "get the f**k away from my house or I'll call the police". I said sorry and left quickly (half naked). I always wore my black sleeping outfit after that. One night in Reno I was parked across the street of a large parking lot near a residential neighborhood. About midnight I heard racing car engine, tire squealing then crash. Then crash again. And another crash. More crashes... I looked out the window at the parking lot now nearly empty this time of night; a car was driving around just crashing into other cars apparently just for the fun of it. As I left the area I happened to notice I had parked that night in front of a police station which I guess it was empty since I saw no activity there! One night on a side pull out shoulder off freeway in New Mexico I was very tired and needed just a short nap. Highway patrol ran me and vehicle plates then told me there was picnic area a mile up the road. I moved on up there and stayed the rest of the night no hassles. I camped out in parking lot of Luxor casino Las Vegas. Accidentally slept in. I had all the vent windows open. Security knocked on window and told me to move on. One night in Texas out in the middle of nowhere I pulled into a 24 hour truck stop and pulled head into parking space in back of the gas station. My wife in a panic woke me up telling me that someone was prying on the windows trying to break in. I jumped into the drivers seat trying to find my keys. Problem is I had to back out of the space and I couldn't see out the mirrors and I was half asleep and didn't have a full view of the situation. The "drunk Mexican" was yelling at me saying he needed help, he needed help. "Please help me" in slurred English. I was concentrating on getting the van moving when my wife all of a sudden was yelling "he's got a gun, he's got a gun". Somehow I got the van backed out with out hitting anything and started leaving. The Mexican jumped into a white pick-up truck and started following us. I stopped at the gas pump and saw him in my mirror stop behind me and he got out and was coming up to the van. I floored it and got onto the freeway and never saw him again. Next problem was gas gauge was showing empty and it was 50 miles to the next gas. This taught me three things: Never park with an empty gas tank. Never pull face into a parking space. Always have an escape/defense plan. I made it 50 miles on fumes. I had to wait until morning for that gas station to open and I was a sitting duck the rest of that night but luckily no further problems. I love urban stealth camping. Over the years, I have saved big bucks and I like the flexibility of not being limited to a motel room. - California Don « Letter Re: Preparations for Eyesight & Hearing |Main| Note from JWR: » Saturday October 24 2009Noise, Light, and Litter Discipline, by Survival Ranger
“If I can find your MRE trash, I can find your patrol base!” A quote that has stayed with me, haunted me, and perplexed me throughout my military career. Who would have thought that simple traces of life could serve such a double edged purpose? The very fact that we could locate (almost better than a GPS fix on a position) an enemy encampment, an over-watch position, or cache by sight sound or smell is an amazing concept. But the fact that careless lapses in security on any of the above could compromise our own is a very harrowing one. Noise discipline –The practice of minimizing ones noise signature to a degree that it does not compromise mission essential actions is very important. This could range from a night raid on an enemy stronghold, to an urban reconnaissance of the local supermarket overrun with post-SHTF warlords, to retrieving water or utilizing the latrine at 3am in your secure perimeter. At night, as sight is diminished, the body attunes itself more towards the gathering of sound and touch. Simple noises that were previously background in the daylight are suddenly brought to the very real and close foreground at night. Am I saying to remain totally silent at all times? Of course not. That is both unrealistic, and not something that anyone would enjoy, accompanied by a jabber-jaw! I am simply stating that in times of necessity, such as a TEOTWAWKI scenario, noise discipline can mean the difference in being an advantageous target for a bunch of looters, or having a perfectly laid ambush in wait for them! Simple ways of improving your noise discipline are as follows: Light Discipline – The practice of minimizing or completely reducing ones light signature so as to mitigate all possible detection during hours of darkness. Light discipline seems like a no brainer, until you see a group of people trying to fumble their way around a forest in the dark! Even the smallest red lens flashlight can give away your position during hours of limited visibility. But how do we mitigate this?
Litter Discipline – The practice of cautiously monitoring, and properly disposing of your waste. This can range from a candy bar wrapper, to entrails of a gutted deer, to footprints, or even human waste. In the tracking community this is called “spoor”. (An Afrikaans word, from the Dutch word for tracking.) This is classified as generally anything that is unnaturally occurring in the given natural environment. Examples would be footprints or broken limbs in a vegetated area. Water drop trails on concrete, Gum wrappers on a nature trail, etc. Simply put, this can give away your position, trail, or if the tracker is very keen, your exact rate of travel, and last time at that given location. Some ways to mitigate carelessness with litter are:
There really is no end to noise, light, and litter discipline. You can take it as short or as extensive as you want, but keep in mind the consequences of each of your actions. Hopefully you will never need to use any of this knowledge, but for a fun time, try to practice one thing a night for a week, and see just how challenging some of these things can be! Take the family camping, and instruct the kids to only disturb what is necessary and fix everything when you leave. When the sun goes down, there is no more light. During the day, try using hand and arm signals to talk. It’s a great bonding trip, and is an invaluable lesson to all. You will also have a much better appreciation for nature, and the secrets it hides when it is tended to, and the ones it reveals when it is not! Stay safe, and practice practice, practice! « Letter Re: North Dakota as a Retreat Locale |Main| Note from JWR: » Friday October 23 2009Selecting and Caring for a Provider, Defender, and Companion, by Survival Ranger
Ironically, I'm not talking about a person while writing this article. The truth is that in many situations, a firearm will be a Provider, Defender, and Companion, and more. Thus, it is only fitting that I shed some light on the very real necessity of proper firearms selection and maintenance.
Care - So now you have your firearm selected based on need, price, use, and however else you came up with to talk your significant other into letting you spend the money on it! It is now time to go sight-in / zero your weapon, learn its function and operation, and practice. But before you do, ensure that you take a little bit of time to care for the weapon first! I know what some of you may be thinking: Yes it is common sense to perform some level of maintenance prior to operating a weapon for the first time; however this is an article for the lowest level of firearms knowledge. We all must start somewhere! After being in the military just a short time I had cleaned my weapon cleaned with Break-Free CLP Storage of your firearm is critical as well. Keep it in a controlled climate, free from dampness, and dust. If you bury your firearms, take extra care in waterproofing, and include moisture absorbing (silica gel) packets. If you have children, educate them, and ensure extra safety measures are taken. Lubricating: Note: Be careful what chemicals you use on plastic pieces, and around optics or accessories. Some cleaners and solvents may discolor or otherwise ruin the material! This has been a ground level article on weapons selection and care. It is in no way the only way to do things, just a way that has worked for me, and has been learned through blood sweat and tears. I hope that it saves you all of them! Enjoy your firearms, and care for them so that they can care for you one day, be it putting food on the table, or preventing your family from being food on someone else’s! Practice, Practice, Practice, and Happy Hunting! - Survival Ranger « Letter Re: Lamar Alexander's Solar Homesteading E-Book |Main| Note from JWR: » Thursday October 22 2009Lessons Learned from Hurricanes Ike, Rita, and Katrina, by TiredTubes
In September, 2008, Hurricane Ike--a Category 4 hurricane--pounded the Gulf Coast of the southern US. Some coastal communities like Crystal Beach no longer really exist. Inland, life was severely disrupted. For those of us on the South Coast hurricanes are a frequent reality. We were quite well prepared, but used the disruptions and dislocations as a test and opportunity to tune up our preparations. 1. Be ready to help others and to accept help We didn't need much during Ike, but the power went out before a neighbor finished boarding up his house. My 1 KW inverter, hooked up to his idling truck provide the juice for a Skilsaw and a few lights; allowing him to finish. Usually it is skills and not "stuff" that helps others and yourself. Besides strengthening a neighborly friendship, the number of damaged houses was probably reduced by one. Our own [permanently-installed] genset uses natural gas (a tri-fuel generator) which in the majority of cases is superior and much cheaper to operate. Over the 11 days that we didn't have power it consumed $100 worth of natural gas. I estimate that an equivalent amount of gasoline would have cost more than $300. I stopped it every 75 hours for oil and filter. If your genset doesn't have an hour meter, then add one. There are some inexpensive self contained hour meters made for lawn equipment that work very well and require no hard wiring. It's really the only practical way to keep track of operating time, without which, intelligent maintenance is impossible. I noticed that many generators, some still in the box, on Craigslist following Hurricane Ike at bargain basement prices. I recommended to a friend he latch onto one of these and purchase a dual-fuel gasoline/natural gas carburetor] kit. Ants can profit from short-sighted grasshoppers. Develop a pre-event SOP: When we hear of a hurricane in the Gulf, we pick up loose items like branches that can be thrown by high winds and cause damage (aviators call this rubbish FOD), trim trees, check prescriptions, recharge everything rechargeable, treat the swimming pool with "shock" chlorine, get all the laundry and dishes done, get all the trash out for pickup, take “before” pictures, etc., etc., etc. 3. Have backups for your backups. The portable generator above was our backup to the natural gas-fueled genset. Then an inverter and ups. After that is a 100 Watt solar array I've been tinkering with to provide power for security lighting,etc. One important word on generators: Treat yours like it is the last one you'll ever get. Try and get a good one, I prefer either a Honda or Briggs Vangard engine. My Vangard portable is approx 10 years old and absolutely dependable. The difference is methodical maintenance. Keep the manuals, and read 'em ! Keep the oil changed, keep a fresh spark plug, keep spare [oil, air, and fuel] filters. Most importantly run it under load once a month. Unless it's new, pull off the cowling and clean all the dirt and dust from fins on the cylinder jug. Closely examine the starter rope, the fuel lines, et cetera. Replace 'em if they ain't perfect. Don't store gasoline in the machine other than enough for one periodic test run. Develop a ritual on test runs: such as every other payday, or the last Saturday in the month, to reduce it to a ritual. I run mine monthly whilst cutting the back yard lawn. (The mower makes more noise.) If you use gas cans; stick with metal, preferably safety cans. Plastics are slightly permeable and it will go bad much faster in a plastic can. On that note, [in humid climates] don’t keep spare spark plugs with the machine. This is because in outdoor storage the insulators can absorb moisture [and the metal parts can corrode]. Keep them inside or in a sealed can with some silica gel. An old one-quart paint can is ideal. 4. Double your plans for helping other people. Several relatives from coastal areas evacuated to our house (approximately 50 miles inland). I keep a 55 gallon drum of stabilized gasoline to fill up their cars to get them home. This was a lesson learned after the Rita evacuation cluster. How much food you will go through will surprise you. It finally dawned upon us that we almost always eat dinner (lunch to you Northerners) and sometimes breakfast away from home. So what we consumed whilst hunkered down seemed out of proportion. 5. Keep a dial up phone line around, after 24 hours the cell phone tower generators started running out of propane, the cable modem (and the cable) went down with the power. Remember how to make that dial-up modem work. If you have cable television, then keep a traditional antenna handy. If you live near a major market the local AM news station, then it is probably a good bet. Have a good UPS, plug the computer and the desk lamp into it. If you have a cordless phone, plug it into the UPS too. The UPS will take the "bumps" out of the generator's power; your computer will thank you. Make sure you test the UPS periodically by plugging in a 100 Watt lamp and pulling the plug on the UPS. I find I need to replace that UPS battery about every 2-to-3 years. 6. Plan for the guests. Have plenty of soap, have a small flashlight (preferably with rechargeable batteries) for each guest. Have things other than television to keep youngsters occupied. Try and get plenty of rest. You'll probably be plenty busy after you can poke your head out again. In this vein don't forget dishwashing supplies, laundry supplies, baby supplies, etc. If it's a predictable event such as a hurricane, have all the dishes and laundry done. before it hits. Keep fire extinguishers near the gas generator, in the kitchen, and near the camp stove. 9. Be ready to make temporary repairs.. The missing shingles, damaged windows, etc. Have some plywood, a few 2x4s, some Visqueen polyethylene sheeting, batting boards, duct tape, a tarp, some nails, and so forth around. If you happen to have a good cordless drill, then you'll find sheet rock and deck screws are very superior to nails. If you're squared away then you already have this stuff , but a neighbor might be in need, so buy extra. 10. If I had my choice of just one utility it would be running water. Fortunately where we reside is served by a well run rural utility district which has prepared well for hurricanes. Failing this, in addition to stored water I have a portable gas utility pump (Robin brand) that can pressurize our water system from our pool and has sufficient capacity for a fire line. The pool got a good jolt of shock a day before the storm hit. 11.Keep some cash money handy. For a few days [with no utility power] there were no functional ATMs, and no way to use credit or debit cards. 12. Keep a low profile. About a week after Ike a passerby indignantly asked "How'd you get your lights turned on?" This showed his ignorance on several levels. He seemed to think someone just had to flip a switch downtown and "shazam!" his lights are on. I couldn't make him understand there has to be an unbroken physical link between a power plant and consumer, this seemed to aggravate his obvious helplessness. Telling him that we had been making our own juice seemed to irritate him. I wonder who he voted for? People with this mindset (that the world owes them something) could be a genuine liability in a real catastrophe. (BTW on a news show during a piece about energy, I actually heard a lady refer to natural gas as “just another dirty fossil fuel”) and not be challenged on the facts. Little minds scare me. I think that the hyper-liberals would love to use the heavy hand of government to force the ants take care of the grasshoppers. Keep a low profile. The best advice I ever heard on the subject (I believe it was Howard J. Ruff 13. Keep a notebook, keep a record of what happened, but especially keep a record of preps you overlooked or screwed up, or stuff you ran out of, or skills that need to be added or honed. That's where most of the preceding information came from! Also keep tabs on what's scarce after an event. Gas was scarce, but diesel plentiful after Rita. In contrast, after Ike there was plenty of fuel, but few operating stations due to lack of power. (There was a "mandatory evacuation" during Rita which turned out to be a fatal traffic jam for a few poor souls which quickly emptied the filling station tanks.) Out our way the local Wal-Mart made a heroic effort and opened up on locally-generated power, two days after Ike. The sheriff’s department was there to “maintain order”. (Let’s just say that they actually wear brown shirts here.). This event was a lifetime opportunity to study the varied behaviors of people under stress. « Letter Re: Preparations for Eyesight and Hearing |Main| Note from JWR: » Sunday October 18 2009Prepping for the Worst Case: Becoming a Refugee, by Dr. L.D.
I am unable to make my home self-sustaining. So, unfortunately, my family will probably become refugees in a true SHTF scenario. My focus presently is in becoming desirable refugees rather than shunned refugees. The key is minimizing any negative impact (extra logistics of all sorts) and maximizing any positive impact (filling in weak spots) to someone that is geographically fortuitous. I was challenged to figure out how a small family could best become a wanted commodity when food is tight and security isn’t. I determined the key for us was that everything carried needed to be dense in value. Density equals mass divided by volume. In our case, mass would be the battered value of the item; volume was limited by the size of our packs. We can’t carry enough bulk food, but we can carry items that will have an excellent post-SHTF (bartered) value, an example would be trading batteries for an illuminated-reticle or starlight scope in exchange for food. Keeping our packs small (but danged heavy) will give us an additional advantage if we need to make a small camp. Skill sets are valuable. I am fortunate to have become a physician. Talk about (trading) food for thought! I am trained in Internal Medicine, so much of my skill set depends on a working infrastructure, that is, availability of medications, imaging (X-rays, CT, MRIs and the like) which will be useless once the grid goes down. To make up for that, I have been certified in ATLS (Advanced Trauma Life Support) and ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support), the former being far more useful in extended emergencies. Further, I have also trained in mass casualty scenarios. I have been stashing typically needed and well tolerated medications in a FIFO set-up in my home, from antibiotics to blood pressure pills. In a legally gray area, I have some potent narcotics (barter/ransom/medical use). I also have a good stock of scalpels, retractors, Celox and the like to maximize my worth. The first lives my first aid kit may save might be my family’s. My skill set will be in demand, and I hope with the other positives below, worth enough to take in extra mouths to feed. But I recognize, perhaps better than non-medical people, that the quality of medical care will quickly revert to the level practiced before the advent of antibiotics and other modern pharmaceuticals. Think Civil War or WWI where a gut-shot was a death-sentence. Garlic may have some ant- microbial properties, but it pales compared to a few doses of modern antibiotics. Being a doctor in a SHTF scenario may be like being a sailor in the middle of a desert: lots of knowledge but only able to apply a small fraction of it. My wife is an educator and now teaches special needs kids. If the Collapse is a bad one, kids will still need to learn, and there is more to teaching than just putting material in front of kids, as anyone that homeschools will agree. Those are our special skill sets. You can never have enough skill sets, and we plan to further develop our skills. Our two children are too young to be useful for anything except giving us joy, . And dirty laundry. We have been buying weapons in standard calibers – 45 ACP, 5.56, and 22LR. I have given myself the luxury of owning a PS90. I rationalized the purchase by the fact that it supports a 50 round magazine of 5.7 rounds and bridges the gap between a pistol and a longer rifle. In reality, it looks really cool. Four mags on my hip (and one in the rifle) gives me 250 rounds. In an urban/suburban location, which will be the most difficult part of our journey, I do not see a need to shoot over 100 m. Most action will likely be under that, and that is the niche for the PS90. Additionally, it’s bullpup design keeps it short and maneuverable in a vehicle without sacrificing accuracy (it has a 16 inch barrel). More importantly, we have packed way about 150 pounds worth of ammo in our G.O.O.D .bags and another 70 lbs in our BOB’s. We have so far two extra ARs and three Glocks for barter/trade. We don’t have a weapon for the 22LR, but either we will (Ruger’s 10/22) or it’s for barter. Our bags are meant to carry the lead at the sacrifice of food. It may be easier to barter rounds (heavy but small) for food (light but large). If we do make to the hinterlands, having our ammo added to the favorably situated ‘castle’ will be a bonus. My wife and I both shoot accurately to 200 m, and well enough at 300 - 400 m to keep the philistines away. We continue to practice our shooting skills by range time and class time. We will get far. I’ve begun a ‘collection’ of survival knives and high quality folders by buying two at a time (again, two is one, and one is none). They will be needed en route and, like ammo, possess an excellent weight to bartered value. My guess is that knives will lost or broken and there will be a demand for them. In the same category, are redundant Katadyn water filters kits. Extras were purchased because they are small and will barter well. Bolt cutters were bought because they will be useful traveling and also in barter. Bic lighters, assorted tiny screws for spectacles with jeweler screwdrivers , rechargeable CR123 and AA batteries, extra Gerber multitools, quality compasses, 550 cord, several small but bright flashlights (Fenix brand – 1 or 2 CR123 batteries and they pump out over 180 lumen and fit on a keychain or a rifle), two Old Testaments, and 2 American flags fill the small spaces in the gear. We keep thinking on how to improve our “stock” and get more bang for the buck with ‘value dense ‘ items. I thought of the extra eye-glass screws after having my own come apart just as I got to work and spent a miserable day squinting. Someone missing their glasses won’t function at near capacity and the eye glass screw may be the equivalent of the nail that caused a horse to be lost, then a rider to be lost etc. We also have our own gear and clothing, using the layer approach with an outer hardshell in camouflage. We both have packed two pair of extra boots, either for the long haul or barter. These items get thrown into the trunk along with our Camelbaks, and our mountain bikes (with extra tubes and tires) go on top supporting a few jerry cans of gasoline lashed between them. If we can’t get to a refuge with available gas or the roads become impassable, then we load the bikes up and ride/walk until we are welcomed. If we’re lucky, the Collapse will wait until we can move to a more geographically desirable location and all these purchases will remain useful while we focus on new needs (stored food, long term water and power and etc). If not, I have improvised a plan that adapts to our situation and hopefully will change our refugee status to a valued team-member. This is written in part because there has been no view from the prepared refugees. There may be more preppers without a safe haven than those able to develop a safe haven, not because of any deficit or laziness on their part, but because of reality. In addition, all preppers cannot move to a sparsely populated area in the US for if they did (imagine merely 10% of NYC, LA, and DC doing so during by the end Obama’s administration), those areas would no longer be sparsely populated! So think of what you can carry that can be bartered for things you can’t carry and that will make you into a valuable team member. I have worked hard to become a doctor (and perhaps even harder to remain a doctor is this crazed system) and to be able to give charity rather than receive it. If I am to receive the charity of shelter from someone who is able to do so, I will be sure that we do more than just pull on own weight. We will add security, in the short and long haul. So if TEOTWAWKI happens, keep a lookout for strangers who may have much to offer. But for the grace of God, it might have been you unable to live in a geographically desirable area and looking to add to an established sanctuary. « Two Letters Re: Abandonment of the Dollar is a Premature Rumor |Main| Square Foot Gardening, by N.C. Gardener » Saturday October 17 2009Three Letters Re: Perspectives on Roughing It and Covert Car Camping
Hi Jim, James, In the event of troubled times however, I would expect a less tolerant attitude from small town law enforcement than I encountered. I don't know what the right answer would be for this, but expect to be harassed and told to move on in many places (at the least). If you're packing heat I would expect even more trouble. Finally, make sure you take Jolly's advice about finding a place to discreetly take care of hygiene. You will have much less trouble if you look clean cut and respectable. Shave and keep your hair trimmed. The best place I've found for thorough showering and bathing on the cheap is a gym with a pay by the day feature. $5 could buy you some exercise and a shower with no one thinking anything of it. God Bless you all, - SGT B. Mr. Rawles, 1. Use compressed or liquid-gas stoves and/or lanterns only with knowledgeable adult supervision, and in Scouting facilities only where and when permitted. But there is much more at the link. « Letter Re: Preparations for Eyesight and Hearing |Main| Notes from JWR: » Thursday October 15 2009Perspectives on Roughing It and Covert Car Camping, by Jolly
I was a Boy Scout, and later did a fair amount of camping when I toured the US by motorcycle in the late 1980s. My tents started floorless and without mosquito netting; progressed to canvas umbrella tent with both. Later still, I was able to go to ripstop nylon "pup" style tents. Advancing, finally, to modern shock-corded aluminum poles and nylon. After a long gap of 20+ years, my son is now a scout, and I'm on the "no-other-parent-can-go-and-we'll-have-to-cancel-if-you-don't-volunteer" rotation for his troop. I just completed my second camp-out, and have noticed a few things that both dismay and encourage me. Following is a stream-of-consciousness review of my reentry into the roughing-it world. Please bear in mind that emergency preparedness has been on my mind for a couple of years, and I didn't go into this a complete neophyte. That said, I didn't actually do anything other than car-camping since about 1993. Buy a backpack one size smaller than you think you need. It's amazing how much crap a backpack can hold - inside and out. If you actually physically cannot cram another gizmo into the pack, then you'll have to leave that gadget behind. That will always focus your mind on what's truly important. The single most important article of clothing you need in an emergency is a hooded rain poncho. Even in mild temperatures, you can lose a lot of body heat when you're wet. A rain poncho will help against wind and rain, and can double as a tarp if necessary. I have found two good sources: Jacks-r-Better and Camping Survival's "GI Plus". You should spray both with silicone to enhance their water repellant properties. Don't rely on cheap plastic or vinyl ponchos. During testing I quickly destroyed both of these varieties. Second most important article of clothing is hiking boots, followed closely by a full brimmed waterproof hat. I have the Tilley nylon winter hat, with retractable ear muffs. Craigslist is the best place to get camping gear cheap. To date this year, I have picked up two tents, a backpack, a Coleman stove, camp kitchen, tarp, and several other things. Usually, the price is about 10-25% of retail. In the case of the Coleman stove, it's an older model (1973) and built much better than the modern cr*p (which I also have). A $15 repair kit, and $20 for the stove, and it's in brand-new condition. I got a $300 North Face tent for $75 - and it was brand new with original price tags. Craigslist is a wonderful resource, but there are some rules you might try. First, look for a solid month before offering to buy anything. That way, when a bargain shows up, you'll know it instantly. Second, if the item is really hot - don't make any arrangements to pick it up more than a day out. I lost the chance to acquire a pair of Wiggy's brand sleeping bags because I tried to schedule pick up four days away. The lady sold them to somebody else because he offered her a deal she couldn't refuse. That's $1,000 worth of sleeping bags I could've had for $50 and I was too cheap to just pick them up ( about 80 miles away ). Third, as hinted at above - when purchasing from Craigslist - calculate your time & mileage into the price of the items. A bargain that's 50 miles away becomes much more expensive with gas and driving time tacked on. Ask if the seller can meet you half way. And fourth - generally low ball an offer on the item unless it's already too-good-to-be-true priced. Break in your emergency / hiking boots. I have two pair of excellent quality boots that I've had for about eight years. I've worn them on occasion, but never really broken them in. This weekend, I pulled down a pair and used them on this trip. Socks were too thick for one thing - these are Goretex and Thinsulate boots, and a bit thicker as a consequence. My feet were miserable yesterday as the socks were too tight, and I ended up hobbling about like an old man by the end of the day. Today I went without socks (as my second pair of socks were just as thick as the first), and was much better, but had the other problem of rubbing the wrong spots you'd expect to have when going sans socks. Test your equipment. Every camp-out is a test bed for my equipment. This particular trip I tested a Craigslist-purchased North Face one man tent ( Canyonlands ), and a newer sleeping pad ( Thermalite Prolite Plus ). The tent was wonderful. Bigger than my small nylon tent used when motorcycle camping (though not by much ), and an excellent performer. It's my current favorite. The mattress also was quite nice - and made in USA. That said, I think I understand the popularity of inflatable camp pillows. My older head and neck didn't appreciate the stuff-sack-filled-with-a-towel-and jacket pillow that worked adequately 20 and 30 years ago. I had a nasty headache when I awoke this morning, and I know I was head higher than feet on the gentle slope. My 18 year old sleeping bag, however, worked well. Sitting down is the main problem for old knees and feet - especially in the rain. I don't want to sound like a whiner, but it gets tiresome standing around with a coffee cup because the ground is too wet to sit, and there aren't any rocks nearby. I'm open to suggestions to fix that. On my first trip, I had cut a section of the closed-cell Thermarest pad ( they're green and purple, and do not compress well at all). It helped a lot placed on a rock. This time, I didn't have that, as I was using a different ( more comfortable )pad. Erect a tarp so you have a dry place to work. Tarps are cheap, light, small to pack, and generally easy to erect. If it's raining, put up your tarp first so you can unpack necessities where it's dry. You might even need to erect your tent under one. Later, you can cook under it, and generally live under it until bedtime. Put lanyards on everything. A recent fetish of mine is parachute cord. I get mine from Supply Captain in 100-foot lengths. I put lanyards on my pack zippers, multi-tool, flashlights, LED lanterns, etc. I use different colors and locations to help me know which of the myriad zippers it's attached to. For example, to get to my emergency whistle, I can tug on the blue & yellow one. For my tactical light - the olive drab. Multi-tool is black, et cetera. There are different sizes of nylon cord. Get the smaller stuff for many jobs. If I wish to erect a tarp, use a 100 lb test cord instead of the 550 paracord. It's far smaller, lighter, and easier to work with. There's a tension when purchasing emergency equipment. Bright-and-visible vs camouflage. Bright orange equipment, or ACU digital camo? Or something in between? Currently, I've been getting innocuous black or green equipment. If I need to be seen - I can always whip out mylar space blanket, or build three fires, or use the whistle, etc.. Anybody who thinks that anything more than bare-bones survival is feasible with a shiny space blanket hasn't actually used one in the woods. I'm very ambivalent about these things. I can see a use for them, I guess, to help reduce heat loss, but can't imagine they're effective in most situations I'm likely to encounter, with one exception. That exception would be as a blanket put on a injury victim to prevent or mitigate shock. Any animated person is going to tear the damn things or find they're too small to really do anything well. They really are just barely useful. Especially for big people such as myself. I'm going to experiment with a sleeping bag version put out by Adventure Medical called a "Heat Sheet." I probably should've tried it last night, but I had too many other tests going on, and didn't want any more variables. The next trip is early November, and might already be too cold for a decent test. I hope to have my Wiggy's winter bags by that time. The Heat Sheet is interesting because it's a full sleeping bag and you don't have to worry about coverage. I'm a big guy and coverage is important. I've heard it's warm but keeps moisture trapped inside. Lower that pack weight! Did I mention that people try to carry too much crap? One of the younger scouts packed two tents (actually a Hennessey Hammock and a Sierra Designs Tengu 3!), plus one of those nylon full-sized camp chairs. His pack weighed a ton. One patrol had so much stuff, they used a child's wagon to carry what wouldn't fit in their ( giant ) packs. Part of this is not their fault - the Scouts don't allow liquid fuel stoves, and therefore, the scouts have to use propane. Of course when I was a kid, we used only wood. But, many camping areas do not allow campfires any more. Carry only one extra set of clothing, except, maybe, socks. In addition, carry two layers, or more for winter. If you get one set of clothes dirty or wet, then just clean and dry them while wearing the other set. I prefer nylon and polyester. Believe it or not, Boy Scout pants and shirts are among the best I've found, for a decent price. They come in sizes up to XXXXL, too. Just ensure that you have very high quality and tough clothes. Don't take any mess kits made out of plastic. Use only metal so it can double as cooking equipment. I hate to say this - I bought the entire family colorful mess kits. Each had their own color, and they come with plate, bowls, spork, cup, etc. And for car camping, they're great! But, for hiking / camping, they can't do double duty as cooking equipment, so they're leaving my pack. I'm replacing the set with a stainless steel mug of 20 oz, and a lidded 600 ml pot that can be used as plate and bowl. Less equipment = less weight. Did you know that you can take a prophylactic dose of Ibuprofen to minimize swelling when you know you're going to hit the trail [on an arduous hike]? I learned this from a doctor at an Appleseed event. It's very effective, but don't drink alcohol 48 hours before or after the dose. Ask your doctor for specifics. Take a hike with a full pack. I'm good for about three miles before I worry about getting an infarction. Part of the problem are the shoes, but general lack of fitness is kicking my butt. I used to ride a bicycle 300 miles a week in the 1980s, but the last twenty years I've been a software engineer and my fitness has plummeted. How are you going to cook food? Planning for an emergency, you have to ask yourself questions such as, "What will I be cooking? How long in the woods? How many people? Car camping? And so on. My cooking plans are pretty extensive. If I'm staying put in my house, the main plan includes a Coleman stove. My wife actually prefers cooking on one of those to our electric range. It's also useful for car camping. One gallon of Coleman fuel will last an amazingly long time. Refills are available at most gas stations with yellow-bottle Heet. A single burner camp stove is great for motorcycle camping. Next tier down is wilderness camping - for that I prefer alcohol burners / stoves. There are myriad choices, and I won't go into all of them. I even tried to invent my own and found that I couldn't do a better job of it than a dozen others I've purchased. The best, in my opinion, is the Trangia "Spirit Burner" from Sweden. Not pressurized, no moving parts. Built like a tank, but pretty light to carry, too. About $10. My own system marries a "Sterno" stove with a Trangia burner, and I get a full-sized pot and pan platform with a windscreen for about half a pound. I use two of these side by side for two burners to cook most anything. Total cost for both is about $35. Buy some denatured alcohol and cook some meals on your porch to get the hang of it. That is part of fully testing your equipment. Please note that there are two kinds of Trangia burners. The military surplus version fits the Sterno stove perfectly. The civilian version requires support. I use a tuna can. If you invert the tuna can, the burner is closer to the pot. I don't do that myself, and have found the heat transfer to be completely adequate. You can also just use a Sterno can, obviously. A lot of people prefer "canister" stoves - using butane, propane, isobutane, or other variants. Yes, these are great. They work anywhere. But, they are expensive to fuel and it's harder to find refills. Also, most butane systems have tiny pot stands, making them very easy to knock over. And if you're cooking with large pots or pans - they're almost unusable. Whatever you decide upon - stock up on fuel, and place that fuel in several caches, both cars, bug-out bags, etc. If you're using volatile fuel, such as white gas, ensure you insulate the can against high heat. In cold weather, keep a 4 oz bottle of alcohol inside your jacket to ensure easy lighting. Buy a windup radio that charges cell phones. These are down under $50 and will give you two types of communication. I have the Eton FR360. These also charge any USB device, including iPods and most music players. This weekend I used it to keep my iPhone charged, and while a bit tedious - it worked. How to Covertly Sleep in Your Car Cover all the windows on the inside with large sheets of butcher paper (white) or brown wrapping paper. Both can be found for cheap at Wal-Mart. It's important to do a neat job of it so there are no wrinkles, holes, or other damage. I use clear wrapping tape, and cut to fit. On both vehicles, the windows covered were tinted, and only a close look would you even notice they were blocked off. They just look - blank. On the Suburban, I bought a bungee cord and tan curtains for $10 - again from Wal-Mart. String the curtains on the bungee cord. Then, attach the cord to the coat hanger hooks behind the driver's and passenger seats. Make sure they hang straight and neat. There will be a gap at the top of the curved roof, but it's nothing to worry about. The last step is to turn off your car's interior light if you can. On many newer cars, this is done with a switch on the driver's console. Other cars have a switch on the light itself to prevent the light coming on with an open door. If all else fails - disconnect the light bulb. The hard part is finding a place to sleep. Here is one time when you cannot sleep in Wal-Mart's parking lot. You're not driving an RV, just a car. And "empty" cars will be scrutinized by flashlight-wielding security or police. In a large metropolitan area, the best places are large apartment complexes, preferably straddling a street. Park in the street right behind another car already there. I did this for well over a year without any problems at all. In the drive-in apartment complexes, ensure there's a lot of extra spots, and that the one you pick is not marked in any way. Usually, I try to pick a spot that the front of the car faces a wall, or the garbage dump area. You don't want to face a park or sidewalk. You want your car to be one among many. Don't park way off to one side - dog walkers may be too common and wonder about the car with curtains. Small office parks are another good choice. Here, the opposite of apartment complexes is wanted. Park the car as far from the building entrances as possible. Here it's easier to face a wall or line of bushes. People will do anything to shorten their walk to work. Going to sleep is not normally a problem - I usually went to sleep well after midnight. Whatever you do, don't dawdle when entering your sleep area. There may be people that notice a slow-moving car driving slowly through a parking lot more than once. Scope several places in advance, and have a primary and secondary location for the night. The two most observable times will be going to sleep and getting up. Usually, you'll be more visible during daytime, obviously. But, getting noticed depends on what time you're leaving and where you parked. If you can wiggle into your driver's seat without getting out of the vehicle - you have it made. Neither time was I able to do that. I had to leave the car to get into the driver's seat. I left small flaps in the paper on both cars and would open them to look in all directions (as necessary) for pedestrians and security vehicles. When you're sure you're clear - make a very fast exit, and get your feet on the ground. After that, if required, you can pretend you're retrieving something, and take a leisurely pace. Unless somebody was looking directly at your car when you exited, they will almost assuredly assume you just opened the door, rather than popped out of it. In an office park, ensure your exit is on the opposite side from the office buildings. Imagine a bored secretary staring dazedly out the window. Suddenly - a scruffy looking man with wild hair pops out of a car door, walks quickly around the hood and drives off. Not good. In my favorite park, I was between a wall and a tree break. Though I finally got noticed after six months, and had to use backup. Do not stretch, or scratch your head, or hang around at all at this time. Get into your car seat. Start it, and leave at a normal pace. I don't know about you, but it you're like me - you'll be way too scary an apparition for most people. You should have also designated a place to go in the morning to do the ritual wake-up duties such as bathroom, teeth, hair brushing, etc. I usually use McDonald's. I then repaid them for their facilities by buying breakfast. Other items to remember are ventilation and security. The pickup was no problem - I just left the windows open a crack, including the back panel. This allowed me to hear my surroundings pretty well, too. On the Suburban, it was more problematic. One inch on each window was left open at the top, and I didn't leave the back open. I also engaged the car alarm. Unfortunately, one morning I forgot about the car alarm, and opened the door causing it to go off. I had the key in my hand, and stopped it very quickly, and I was sure the whole world had noticed my faux pas. Alas, nobody even hears car alarms anymore, and I didn't have to abandon that spot. Never, ever go to rest stops on the interstate to sleep. While traveling, if I couldn't find an apartment complex or office park, or other suitable location, I'd park on the onramp of a highway - many times between trucks doing the same. I got rousted three times by cops over the years. Technically, it's illegal to park there. Each time I told the truth - I was very tired, and unsure I could proceed to the next motel location. Two of the three times, the cop said that's fine, and go ahead and stay. The third time, he helpfully noted that the very next exit had a motel. If you have a regular route, other considerations might come into play. For me, sleeping in a tiny Honda Civic, I would have problems with biting insects - and very warm nights. Both problems were solved with an onramp location in an extremely windy spot next to San Francisco bay. (Parish Road off of I-680 in case you're wondering ). My pattern was to arrive about 2 am on a Sunday night and sleep until 7am Monday morning. I then proceeded across the bridge and went to a Burger King in Walnut Creek. I was rousted twice in a six month period. I have less experience in rural areas. Though extreme familiarity with a route can help by allowing you to identify good spots during the daytime for possible use on another trip. For example, I used to drive between Oregon and Pahrump quite often (on my way to attend training at Front Sight). I spent one whole day identifying likely spots for impromptu camp spots. One spot, south of Tonopah was a short road that led to some kind of a relay station. I'm pretty sure it was a microwave station, but it doesn't matter. The small fenced-in building was partially hidden behind a hill from the main road, and clearly was not visited very often. The road leading to it went further around the hill, leaving a nice void hidden from the station itself. Between Tonopah and Hawthorne, I identified two spots very similar to the first, though both were very windy. North of Hawthorne, Walker Lake had parking spots that I felt comfortable enough to use without hiding. Rural terrain will dictate your choices, too. In South Carolina, I identified two spots on US-25 north of Greenville that looked pretty good. Their characteristic? They were both old houses that had been completely covered in kudzu! I could literally drive under a canopy of kudzu and hide the entire car. Finally, etiquette inside the car. I always wore gym shorts and T-shirt in a sleeping bag. Never anything resembling underwear. I never used a flashlight or listened to the radio. I was there strictly for sleeping. I didn't eat, cook, brush teeth, or anything else except sleep. The human eye is especially tuned to see movement. Even with covered windows, a brief movement might catch a dog-walker's attention enough to wander over and look at the car. Not a good thing. I estimate I've saved more than $10,000 in motel bills over the years. The main thing is to have people assume the car is empty, and belongs to somebody nearby. Obviously, in a serious crisis, extra thought may be necessary to keep below the radar of both security and nosy people. « Two Letters Re: Abandonment of the Dollar is a Premature Rumor |Main| Perspectives on Roughing It and Covert Car Camping, by Jolly » Letter Re: Preparations for Eyesight and Hearing
Hello Mr. Rawles, This is just a quick note from a new reader. If what I mention to you has been covered on your site, I apologize; your site takes more than a few multi-hour reads to digest! I see very little talk about contact lenses/solution and hearing aids/batteries post-TEOTWAWKI in most preparedness articles. I would think it would be most unfortunate to train, learn and prepare for any upcoming abnormalities and shortly thereafter not be able to see or hear. It would seem to me that at least a couple year's supply of contact lenses on hand at all times would be wise, and perhaps an extra hearing aid or twenty for those that need? And I bet you saline solution for contacts and extra hearing aid batteries would be great barter items in the event of a major catastrophe. Those items will be worth their weight in gold (if not more valuable) to the unprepared masses. Perhaps a wise suggestion would be Lasik surgery or something similar very soon for those who would benefit from it; those that depend on contacts would be wise to think about that procedure or something similar to eliminate their dependency on visual aids. And to say the least, several pairs of sturdy, mil-spec frame prescription glasses would be a great investment for the well-prepared. One is reminded of the old "Twilight Zone" episode ["Time Enough, At Last", starring Burgess Meredith] where the bookworm comes out of the bank vault, sees the world in post-nuclear destruction....and drops his glasses, smashing them. A true nightmare scenario indeed! Thank you for your wonderful blog site and books. Sincerely, - Rick T. « Letter Re: Abandonment of the Dollar is a Premature Rumor |Main| Note from JWR: » Wednesday October 14 2009Water, Water Everywhere?, by David in Israel
James, It is imperative that anyone planning a retreat have redundant water supply plans including water table maps and locations of springs and open bodies of water. Planning must include which water tables are affected by drought. The best sources of water are existing deep wells or open un-dammed bodies of water, plans must include how to pump or transport the water to your retreat. Since water is probably the most important strategic asset to a retreat there must be plans to protect and access remote water sources especially in the face of bandits who might attempt to monopolize this asset. Pre-crisis would also be a good time to secure and possibly purchase a clear legal share or long term lease to water rights on nearby properties. - David in Israel « Economics and Investing: |Main| Letter Re: Older Technology Radio Receivers » Tuesday October 13 2009Letter Re: Making Your Own Maps for the Field
Jim, I have Google Earth. On Google Earth you can add lots of legend material, Miles/ Kilometer, parks, etc, I went to the area I was in and printed out several elevations. In some areas you can zoom down to 100 feet elevation. I then went to the nearby office place and had the sheets laminated, and spiral bound. Keep you print outs in order or in the word processor program number your pages and add N,S,E,W tags. Then I got the bright idea that 8”x 11” was rather large so I made new print outs ½ size, laminated spiral bound, with a cover. Now if you do not have a color printer it is possible to save your handy work to disk and at an office place like Kinko's have them print it out for you. The cost is slightly more but well worth the effort. I you don't have a computer you local library has one and if they don't have Google Earth, then use Weatherunderground.com. Choose your area and then pick “wundermap” function right click to copy then paste into your document. One other item I will suggest is a journal. Write down your thoughts and dreams. Later in life it may provide some laughs, good information or just having reading material. The “Marble” type bound notebook is fine or if you are so inclined a mole skin type bound or there are lots of other options just not spiral bound. Jim, you and your family are in our Prayers and thank you for writing your new book, "How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It". I'm now only several chapters into it but I'm already certain the information will save me several thousands of dollars in mistakes. - Jeff B. « Three Letters Re: Heating With Wood |Main| What Recovery? Find Yourself a Recoveryless Job » Monday October 12 2009Experience With Bicycle Commuting and Touring, Hammocks, and Stoves, by David in Israel
Since June of this year when my new Dahon Speed 8 folding bicycle arrived I have greatly increased my bicycle mileage typically doing about 120 miles a week commuting instead of taking the bus in. The Dahon is a 20" wheel folder so I have the option of bagging it up throwing it in the back seat or trunk and catching a ride with friends or taking the inter-city bus if I am tired, this hitch-hike-ability could be an important to a survivalist trying to cover long distances, perhaps even beating out the larger harder to stash 26" wheel folding bikes. The better Dahons come equipped with Schwable super long life tires, they have significantly longer wear life than most bicycle tires. Since this bicycle is ridden around four hours a day comfort is key, a quality narrow spring seat, alloy pedals, hand grips and multi position "horn" bar ends were upgraded since these were the places that my body interfaced with the machine. Good fenders and aluminum cargo racks front and rear let me carry my backpack on the front with the extra pack strap length secured with recycled inner tube rubber bands. I had straps added to my pack to secure my pack onto the front rack where I feel I have the best control. A useful feature of some Dahons is the seat post air pump which gives a long stroke floor pump inside the long seat post shaft. As for spares I carry an extra tube, LED headlight, tire levers, Rema Tip Top patches(by far the best), and a Crank Brothers folding bicycle multi tool, additionally I have 4mm and 6mm Allen wrenches on my key chain next to my Kryptonite bike lock key. During regular times I wear a bluetooth headset for my mobile phone and white LED forward headlamp and red rear LED flashers attached to the helmet, a yellow reflective safety vest makes me even more visible to drivers. A Glock Model 17 and two spare mags in a padded Michael's of Oregon ("Uncle Mike's) holster on my heavy leather belt is comfortable and has shown no complaint to my regular sweating on summer rides. During a two hour afternoon ride I consume about two liters of water and occasionally gulp down some salted honey I keep in a sports gel flask for an extra boost before a hill. Regular mountain commuting will wear on your brakes, a complete set of brake pads is a good idea to keep in your repair kit. I have made several five day to one week trips in the last few years and in addition to the regular stuff I carry for commuting I also include: I find that beans and lots of rice supplemented by eggs for dinner and fresh fruit especially bananas for snacks keep me running strong all day if I am careful to pace myself, I also try to remember vitamins. Since I know that I will be eating large portions it makes sense to pack larger camp pots. Strong coffee seems to boost my cycling strength especially when traveling uphill, but a person should know how late in the day they can drink caffeine before it affects their quality of sleep. Caffeine also causes you to urinate more requiring additional water supply. Along with the Norwegian and Swedish armies, I use the fold-a-cup coffee cup. It is unbreakable and flexible. Hydration is key, for commuting my regular 2/3 liter bottle and a 1.5 liter soft drink bottle is enough for commuting 1.5 to two hours with about 200 meter climb in the hot sun. More water bottles for longer trips can be carried in tight panniers on the rear rack. There are times where a very dilute fruit juice makes gulping down water easier. I refill my bottles at every opportunity. I carry an Aquamira filter squirt bottle for my bike bottle and purification tablets for using questionable irrigation or spring water. I have previously in SurvivalBlog extolled the virtues of kitting together the very small (2/3 the length of a 600 page paperback book) and inexpensive MMR-40 radio. It provides 6 watts for CW or SSB PSK-31 digital mode has a range of up to several thousand miles [with favorable ionospheric conditions]. The Hennessey hammock is a wonder of simple engineering. The asymmetrical design lets a large person lay off-axis on his side without being forced into the parabolic curve of the hammock. Entry is through a slit in the bottom which snaps shut from the weight of the camper and a tough bug net is sewn to the whole hammock. There is a cord keeping the bug net off of the campers face hung from this is a mesh pocket for your glasses, phone, or headlight. The rain fly when attached kept me warm and dry through a few downpours, but if there is a possibility of strong wind the rain fly cords should be staked or weighted with water bottles else they might blow a flap of rain fly open to the rain depending how the hammock is hung. If it is cold more insulation or a sheet of closed cell foam will make up for the compressed insulation heat losses on the bottom of the hammock. The Hennessey hammock also makes a nice swing seat, if you have no big trees available. The instructions also show how to use the hammock as a one man tent using walking stick or saplings. As with any hammock be sure you are tied into live trees and not dead rotted snags which could fall and crush you. On the upside you need not worry about how steep the incline or rockiness of the terrain as you are hanging suspended. I used to carry a small Triangia cook set including a brass alcohol stove, which is a tougher sealable version of the DIY soda can stoves. I have found these to be useful in their weight but the hazard of a tip over burning fuel spill combined with the price of alcohol fuel at the paint store lead me to keep this for ultralight expeditions and instead to use my MSR stove. The MSR Whisperlite
is designed for easy field maintenance as are most MSR products. The one main weak point, the pump stop, which has failed in a non critical way on all of my older MSR stoves, could allow foreign objects into the pump mechanism or loss of the piston, this has been upgraded to a much stronger design in recent years by MSR. I use kerosene due to the higher energy content over gasoline and the cleanest flame of fuels easily available to me in Israel. I carry a small bottle of alcohol to prime the stove, this leads to much less carbon accumulating on the stove, and quicker startups. (A tablespoon of alcohol fuel into the primer cup is enough to prime the stove most of the time.) Using the wind guard (very heavy aluminum foil) wrapped tight to keep the heat in the stove it primes and is ready to cook much faster, then the wind guard keeps the heat on my pots. I must also mention that MSR makes a repair/service kit « Letter Re: How to Make Your Own "Black Out" OPSEC Window Panels |Main| Note from JWR: » Friday October 9 2009Where You Live Matters: How to Assess Your Location and Develop Scenarios, by Brendan S.
A little foreknowledge will prevent you from becoming a victim. Most people don’t think about what they will actually do in the case of an emergency. One just has to see what happened after Hurricane Katrina to see how ill-informed the masses are. They simply expect the government to take care of everything. They meander like zombies to some location and wait to be fed and cleaned up after. Not me! I know what I’m going to do when any disaster strikes.
When disaster strikes where will you be? How well do you know the place where you live, work, or the space in between? Chances are that when a disaster occurs you will be either at home or at work or commuting in between. You may be ready to deal with things at home on a sunny afternoon, but what if you’re on the road in a downpour? The main occupation of think tanks is to devise scenarios of whatever their specialty is; oil, food, military or political events. The same tactics can be done on an individual scale to find out what your reactions might be to disasters or events. You can plan out your reactions to events by knowing what your assets are at the time and how to be ready for any variables. Planning is simply about not being surprised. “When I am in situation 1, I will do X. When I am in situation 2 I will do Y.” Simple yet effective. ASSESS THE SITUATION A scenario doesn’t need to be the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI). Natural disasters are just as important and deadly. Not just in the initial disaster but also in the aftermath. Actually more people usually die after a disaster. Living here in Northern California, earthquakes are an ever present fear and so ill prepared by people and neglected by the elected officials, city planners and developers. People’s houses might be able to take a moderate earthquake with little damage, but what about the roads, highways and overpasses? Chances are fire will spread unabated killing more people than the initial damage. Or, with the cops busy, looters will think it’s open season on home shopping. So where does your house stand in the general theme of threats? TASK #1: List the dangers that might affect your area. Living where you do, you should already have some experience with some disaster inducing events. The United States has a very large variation in weather and its effects can be devastating. Floods near rivers, hurricanes near the coasts, blizzards up north, heat waves almost anywhere, earthquakes out west… the list goes on. You have probably dealt with something already. Growing up in the Midwest we were always in danger of tornados cutting a swath through our neighborhood. Then in winter we had to worry about blizzards. But the situation doesn’t have to be devastating. What if a thunderstorm simply cut the power for several days? What if the basement floods? What if there’s an escape from a prison? Could the effects be temporary or long lasting? Is it just power lines down or a blackout covering several states? Do striking rail workers mean food shortages? Is the riot from a basketball game or did Oakland finally collapse into chaos? ASSESS YOUR LOCATION TASK#2: Know your city. As a pilot I know a lot about terrain. All day long I see the land rolling underneath me. Here in Northern California, from the air, I can easily see how land is managed and how cities and towns are developed. I see how many roads go in and out of town centers, suburbs, business parks and so on. The place I live in is a small town in a valley with only a few roads leading in and out. If there was an earthquake along the Hayward fault line like the “big one” that is due to happen here any time now, and most of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco were apocalyptic hellscapes, the bridges might be knocked out and it would hopefully prevent refugees from setting up camp in our open land. We have a route to safety toward Sacramento if needed. And we have arable land that can be turned into farms quickly. How dense is the population where you live? Do you live in a dense populated city? A suburb? In the center or on the edge, close to farmland? If there was a disaster, where would most of those people head? You don’t need to fly over your area to assess it, Google Earth will do just fine. Take a good look at the main avenues of traffic and housing. Where is the most dense? Where do you not want to be? Where does the suburbs taper off finally into farmland? If Hurricane Katrina is any indication, people will congregate in a large open space like a stadium, park, school or the like. If you were a FEMA organizer, where would you tell people to go? Where are the nearest hospitals? When something happens these are most likely going to be the first place that people head for. There is medical attention, food, warmth and light. If you are uninjured, do you really need to go there? Would it be more dangerous? When the hospital gets overloaded after a disaster and turns into a triage; giving attention to the worst cases first, do you think that panicked people are going to simply wait calmly in the waiting room? Or will they start fights, demand attention maybe at gunpoint? Better to avoid it at all costs. (Or be the very first to show up through the emergency room doors!) Is your home prepared? Most time spent by people like us is in preparing our home for disaster, so this is well covered elsewhere and too vast to talk about here. But don’t just look at the stuff you have in your house. The wall of freeze-dried food will get you through the initial catastrophe, but then what? How adaptable is your house? Do you have a yard that can be turned into a garden with a little work? Where can you get more water? Are you near a stream or lake? Is your neighborhood safe and secure? You don’t have to live in a gated community to be safe, but how far off the main roads is your house or apartment? Would big city gang-bangers find it accessible and tempting? This fear goes up as the powered lights go out at night and all you can see is darkness out of your front door. Even temporary power outages cause hoodlums to go outside and behave like jackasses. How well do you know your neighbors? What would your kids do if you were stuck at work and they were home from school? Do they know your plan of action? Which neighbors could they trust? Which neighbors might want to come together but really are there to deplete your stockpile at twice the rate? ASSESS YOUR WORK AND COMMUTE TASK #3: Know your place of work. If you are stuck at work how long could you last there? You could always sleep at your desk overnight but what about food? Do you think your boss would be ready or willing to provide for you and the other employees? Probably not. It would probably turn into surviving out of your car, especially if your place of work is damaged. What would you do if stuck on the highway? The cars are stopped because of an earthquake, flood, jack-knifed chemical truck, etc. Could you pull off and hike on foot? Which way? When I lived in Tokyo we had to have a plan ready for commuting by train and an earthquake happened. I carried a small street map book so I could walk back to my home when the roads and train lines were disrupted. (Even harder for a foreigner.) The Japanese are far better equipped for disasters from typhoons to earthquakes because of simple occurrence. They know it is just inevitable that something is going to happen. There they can trust their government and employers to help though. Where are your loved ones and do they know what to do? Does your spouse know what you might do? Don’t expect your cell phones to be working. I have an agreement with my wife not to come looking for me. I will either go to work or home and she will do the same. ASSESS THE VARIABLES TASK #4: Game out some variables. Once you have a plan of action and know what you want to do, you have to be ready for any changes. The emergency situation probably won’t stay static, but either gets better with quick action from authorities or more likely get worse through inaction and incompetence from them. If rising flood waters block the road that lies between you and your loved ones, do you know the alternate routes? Where is the higher terrain versus lower? Once you know what you want to do, head straight home for example, what variable might change that course of action? Snow too deep. Flooded bridge. Tremors sending rocks to the road below. Pinhead cop telling you the road is closed. Are you ready for the extremes? Are you ready to spend the night in your car? Or several nights? You can find lists of things to have to make your car into a temporary shelter, but the main thing is not to be surprised and get taken by panic. Simply be ready to tough it out for a while until the situation is to your advantage. If you plan to stay at work, how long until you want to head home? In conclusion, being prepared for emergencies is not just about sitting on top of your stockpile of food with an AR-15 and waiting. You have to know the game plan and how to implement it and expect it to change. As a pilot, I am always ready for an emergency situation by being mentally prepared for it and never panicking when it doesn’t go the way I’ve practiced. You can do the same for any situation. « Letter Re: Firearms Spare Parts Recommendations |Main| Note from JWR: » Tuesday October 6 2009Is Prepping an Insurmountable Task?--The Beginner's Primer, by Gary T.
Once you realize the importance of being prepared for coming hard times, you may ask yourself, “How can I possibly prepare for any scenario? This is an insurmountable undertaking.” The more you ponder this, the more the reality of this seems to be confirmed. Let not your heart be troubled. As with almost any endeavor, the road to success begins with the first step and continues one step at a time. Consistent, prioritized, careful preparation over a period of time, preparation built around what your personal situation (budget, job, family, medical needs, etc.) will allow, can get you in a position in relatively short order to weather the scenarios that are most likely to occur. The mere fact that you have considered the possibilities of what may lay ahead can very quickly put you ahead of the vast majority of the population. Consider the possible scenarios whereby preparedness would prove to be literally a lifesaver. These scenarios range from very geographically localized events, either natural or man-made, to the proverbial TEOTWAWKI. The likelihood any of these events occurring generally becomes decreasing likely in a given time frame as the geographical scope and severity of the event increases. Therefore the occurrence of a total multi-generational societal collapse, requiring the maximum amount of preparation is far less likely to occur over the next year or two or five than relatively local, relatively short term events such as tornados, hurricanes or floods, or even some major terrorist events, all requiring far less preparation than TEOTWAWKI situation previously mentioned. This should be considered in the early stages of preparation as priorities for investment are made. Therefore, your preparation should follow a well planned, measured, prioritized process that enables you to be positioned to go through the most likely scenarios first followed by progressively increasing severe scenarios. Ongoing preparation will build on the past. No effort goes wasted. This should be encouraging to the beginning prepper. How should you start? Start with a careful analysis of the most likely localized events that may occur in your area or region, or events from another region that may impact your local area (remember passenger air service after 9/11). Shutdown of transportation systems, especially trucking and rail should be of paramount concern. What is the probable time frame that these events may cause you to rely on your own resources? Make a list of all the items and quantities you will need to get through that period of time. This constitutes the Phase I physical resources preparation plan. Prioritize the list and within the constraints of your budget begin to acquire the items you have listed. Keeping an Excel spreadsheet makes this task much easier and allows you to see at a glance exactly how much physical resource preparation you have achieved, how much you still need, the value of those resources, the cost to complete your initial Phase I purchases, etc. Your spreadsheet should include rows listing each item with columns for:
In the same way you used Excel to track your Phase I resources preparation status, use your spreadsheet to list categories, sub-categories, items and quantities that you wish to acquire for future Phases, up to and including a Phase for TEOTWAWKI. This allows you to systematically build your level of preparedness a Phase at a time. As you start with Phase I, you can also see how well you are gearing up for future Phases as well. Remember, on-hand quantities, pricing, etc, can carry from the Phase I sheet to the Phase II through Phase “n” sheets so redundant data entry isn’t required! Don’t forget to make hard copies of your files and save them in a three ring binder. Additional Tips for getting started. So you have determined what you need to acquire and have begun to do so. But prepping isn’t just about acquiring tangible goods. It is also about skills. It is especially about skills. Even what I have called “Phase I” preparation should include training in the plan. A diversity of skills within your group (which may start out as just your family) is important. Take advantage of any relevant training available to you at low or no cost. Programs available in many communities include CERT, First Aid, CPR and similar. Use these opportunities to increase your skill base. These are great skills to have in normal times and are great skills to build upon. Even these basic courses could prove to literally be lifesavers in “normal” as well as tougher times. Learn to garden. Even if you don’t have a retreat with the space, perfect soil, and water supply, you should garden on a smaller scale in your city or suburban back yard. This will give you a head start in knowledge and experience (i.e., harvesting and saving seeds for future years) when you are able to move to that retreat location. Plus, fresh garden vegetables are healthier and taste so much better than what you purchase from the store, especially if the store bought vegetables are poured from a can! Nothing beats enjoying a hand picked, vine ripe tomato fresh from the garden (and I confess, I take the salt shaker out back with me!). Put away the foods you eat today. Nitrogen packed survival foods are expensive and likely should and may be a part of your plan. However, many foods that you eat today can be more immediately utilized to kick start your storage pantry at moderate cost while you save for other more expensive longer term options. You can buy or easily build out of plywood a FIFO rotation canned goods rack, set it in a pantry or closet and start loading it up today with the foods you already eat. This accumulation can be done for little perceived cost if done over time. Simply buy a little extra of what you already purchase each time you are at the store. You will be amazed at how quickly you can build up a 30, 60, 90 day supply of canned goods that will never go bad because they are what you currently eat so you rotate them via the FIFO system into your daily meals. Canned vegetables, meats, soups, fruits and sauces can all be stored in this simple way. All at very moderate expense. Learn about your firearms. Practice with them as much as you can afford to. Get professional instruction. Basic courses for novices are available at moderate expense. There are NRA sanctioned courses for basic safety, handling and shooting skills. Work toward completion of an NRA course or equivalent in self defense in the home and self defense outside the home. If you are or once you get to be more advanced, get even more advanced training. If your budget doesn’t initially allow this, do the best you can but plan for more advanced tactical training in a future Phase. The key now is to get what you can afford and build on that. Practice, practice, practice. Don’t think you must necessarily purchase a complete set of new firearms right out of the gate for your survival armory. Conventional wisdom suggests .45 ACP pistols for carry, .308/7.62 NATO semi-autos for your MBR (with expensive red-dot optics), a good .308 bolt action for long range and / or large game hunting, and perhaps a more expensive shotgun than you have budget for. If you already have 9mm pistols, that AR-15 you bought a few years ago “because you wanted one”, the scoped .303 you inherited from Dad and an old but functional Remington 870 Express in 12 gauge, you are good to go for now, as a beginner prepper. Make sure that adequate ammunition is part of your plan, but with this or a similar adequate set of calibers and shotgun you are set for your initial Phases of preparation. Early on, food, water, medical supplies and the like are likely a higher priority than new firearms. You can upgrade in a future Phase. Focus on firearms training at this stage. It’s about prioritization. Besides, later phases prepare for scenarios that will be more likely to require the capabilities of upgraded firearms. A basic principle. Standardize. If you pick .45ACP for your personal carry weapon, it is advantages for all members of your group to do the same. The same principle applies for your MBR, self defense and hunting shotguns, etc. Ammunition and magazine plans will appreciate this. Try to standardize on 1 or 2 battery types for your battery operated devices. Or more correctly standardize by using devices requiring only 1 or 2 battery types. You don’t want to have to store and/or maintain charges on AA, AAA, CR123, C, D, N and CR2032 batteries, when you could be more efficient and effective with perhaps using only AA batteries. This principle applies to anything that you have more than one of. Radios, flashlights, etc. Remember the axiom, two is one and one is none. Standardization means simplicity, efficiency, spares. There may be exceptions, but take standardization into consideration when you develop or modify your plan. Initially, you may have to have a wider assortment of devices depending on the devices you currently have, but have a strategy to standardize. Plan to read or more correctly, to learn by reading. Whenever you come across a useful article, print it out and save it in a three ring binder with other useful articles you have saved. Even if it is something you can’t purchase or do or use until a future Phase, save it now and add it to the plan now. There is an incredible amount of useful information in SurvivalBlog.com. Read and save (and purchase through Jim’s site when you decide to purchase goods from one of his advertisers). Jim helps us so we should help him where we can. If you have relatives or friends in a rural location that you can get too and who are willing to take you in during appropriate events, have a G.O.O.D. plan. This includes hard copy maps with routes and alternate routes. Practice all routes before the big day. Practice your load out plan, again, prior to the big day. Search SurvivalBlog.com for loads of information on G.O.O.D. There are many concerns related to evacuation in certain scenarios. Educate yourself and make educated decisions. This article is the tip of the iceberg with regards to beginning prepping, but hopefully it has a few pointers to get you thinking and to get you started and is an encouragement that this can be done, that you can successfully prepare for the future. You don’t have to purchase all nitrogen packed long shelf life survival foods or the perfect arsenal with one of every conceivable firearm type for every circumstance (in fact limiting (standardizing) models and calibers has some clear advantages) in order to successfully prepare for the likeliest of scenarios. Remember, methodical, prioritized preparing is the way to go for those of us on a budget. Start small, build your knowledge base, supplies and skills, and very soon you will be in the enviable position of weathering the most likely calamities to occur in the next few years. If you continue this methodical, ongoing process, you will continue to improve your situation and continue to put your self in a position to weather increasingly more severe and longer lasting scenarios. The important thing for those on a budget is not to wish you could do it all now by immediately trading cash for all the tangibles and training you need, but to start and to start now and to consistently build to our plan as we can afford to do so. « Economics and Investing: |Main| Note from JWR: » Saturday October 3 2009Travel Security, by CapnRick in Argentina (Part 1 of 2)The following recommendations are a result of my travel throughout the world on business for 20+ years. These observations are offered as a helpful supplement to other sources on the web dealing with personal security issues while traveling. My apologies to those who do not find these observations pertinent to their particular situation. Allow me to say that these suggestions are offered freely and without restriction so they may be passed around with no obligation. Very little of this information is original to me, and I apologize if anyone has written anything similar. Also, I am not a security professional and make no claims of expertise. This stuff works for me, but each reader's mileage may vary. Some of my ideas might actually get people in trouble with the authorities and/or cause physical harm. Please read this with an open mind and a critical eye. Comments are appreciated at travel@ricdav.com. Lots of US Embassy staff, host country Federal Police and Army staff gave me input, horror stories and advice regarding personal safety issues while I was visiting and working in overseas markets. These were Latin America, but including trips to Western European and Pacific Rim countries. I also have input from international and US expatriates living and working there. I know that many people have a lot of experience in many different countries, and may honestly laugh at all these ideas and issues presented here as stupid and alarmist. How you take it is your business. It is submitted in serious concern for the safety of all international travelers. It was necessary for me to learn this stuff because I have lived and worked outside the US most of my life. I first traveled internationally in the 1960s and retired in 2005 to live in Argentina. I hope you can understand that the world in post 9-11 has really changed. Radicals of the right, the left and the lunatic religious extreme and NarcoTerrorists all celebrated when the twin towers went down. You should also be aware that even pre 9-11, international travel was seriously more dangerous than it was in the 1960s. Now, bad guys all over the world have become more encouraged by their perception that bad guys can get away with bad stuff... hence, have become more aggressive. This article contains various types of info, including some info that may not be of interest to all travelers. I hope you will find some of the following items of interest including...
Try to familiarize yourself with the area you plan to visit. There are various aggregators of news that allow one to program their search “bots” to look for keywords involving your area of interest. I use Yahoo News, Dogpile News Search element and some others. I also look for the local news sources for the area in question on the web. Here are some questions you should consider when seeking information about your geographical area of interest.
Groups and individuals have demonstrated their willingness to employ terrorist/criminal tactics to further their agendas. While some threats have a regional focus, others have become international and affect multiple areas. Foreign visitors, military and diplomatic staff are seriously targeted in virtually every region of the world. ALWAYS PLAY THE “WHAT IF... ?” SCENARIO GAME Consider ways you might become a victim of a criminal/NarcoTerrorist attack. Several factors to keep in mind include:
If you see something unusual, report it immediately to security officials for further investigation. Make a note of the individual's description and activities, the time of day, and equipment being used. TRAVEL TIPS Terrorist/criminal attacks at the Spanish/English/Japanese rail systems, Mexican border towns, Bali, Indonesia, Luxor, Egypt, London, England, and other tourist locations signal an increased threat to foreign travelers. While visiting a new location, it is natural to tour local sites of interest. While sightseeing, you should keep good anti-crime/antiterrorism practices in mind. Plan Ahead
If sightseeing with others, pre-designate a location to meet at if separated during an emergency. Make sure someone knows your itinerary (acquaintances, business contacts, hotel staff?) and what time you may be returning. Blend in to Your Surroundings Conceal your national/business/religious affiliation and try to blend in with other people on the street. USA red white and blue t-shirts, soccer/baseball logo clothing and religious jewelry are overly conspicuous in many instances. Observe and conform to local culture. Activities such as public displays of affection, drinking alcohol, or wearing shorts or skirts may be inappropriate. Do not bring undue attention to yourself. Avoid loud or boisterous behavior. Walking the streets at night in an inebriated state in very dangerous in many locations.
If you happen to be one of the poor guys shivering naked on the side of the road with 20-30 others watching the NarcoTraficantes molest the women passengers, understand that you will spend the next several years of your life eating beans in the jungle. Poor folks get to go home, except for the young and pretty girls and teenage boys they want to draft for paramilitary service for the NarcoTraficantes . The NarcoTraficantes are studying in the same Islamic extremist terror schools as Al Qaeda, and Colombian/Mexican NarcoTraficantes' IEDs are really starting to show up a lot more... in recent cases, bait and blast techniques were used in the south of Mexico to kill lots of soldiers and Federal Police. Cruise Ship Security Cruise ships are like a small city where passengers are encouraged to forget their troubles and relax once onboard ship. It is natural for passengers on vacation to let their guard down, especially when out to sea in a resort-like setting. Try to not let a false sense of security aboard a cruise ruin your vacation by becoming a crime victim. Before you ship out, consider taking some of these preventative steps: After you enter your cabin, and while the door is still open, always check inside the bathroom or closest before sitting down inside. Don’t assume that your cabin is as secure as a hotel. Many people have keys to your cabin and your cabin door may be left standing open for hours while the cleaning crews or cabin steward services the room. Cabin doors locks are sometimes horribly outdated and are not re-keyed as frequently as hotel rooms. Obviously, don’t leave valuable items lying around. It is a good idea to have inventoried your luggage and photographed expensive items at home, and even emailed the info to your web email account for easy retrieval anywhere before you packed them at home in case of loss. Since most ship passengers are set up on a charge account system, be sure to use the ship safe deposit box for storage of valuable items, papers, credit cards or extra cash. Use all locks on the cabin door including the night latch. Consider carrying a hardware store door stop in your luggage and deploying it for extra security of the closed door while in the cabin. Some are available with alarms from web suppliers. Don’t open your cabin door to strangers. Whatever the person wants can be expressed from the other side of the closed and locked door. Be sure to teach children about this important procedure. Just like in a hotel, protect your cabin key and cabin number. Dishonest crew or passengers will look for the opportunity to snatch a loose key or one that is left unattended. When in port, be sure to leave your key with the registration desk before disembarking. You also need to keep your guard up with intoxicated passengers. Food and liquor consumption peaks on board ships and cause bring out the worst in some people not used to it. Just because passengers are dressed up, doesn’t mean they will act appropriately or not be overly aggressive. It is not unheard of for a ship passenger to slip a drug into your drink and take advantage of you just like on shore. There are pickpockets, purse thieves, and cabin burglars on board waiting for you to let your guard down or become careless. There are also scam artists who seek and prey on rich vacationers if given the chance. Be aware that if you or your family member gets into trouble on board a ship or in a port, you may be held accountable to the laws of a foreign country. The thing to do is to stay alert, be cautious, and stay safe while at sea. For details on the safety record of your cruise ship or how your ship will handle problems such are lost luggage or crime acts, contact the cruise line directly and ask for written disclosure of their policies and regulations. You can also contact the Cruise Lines International Association in New York City who represents the twenty five largest cruise lines for more information. Door Security Hardware Hotel or motel rooms should be equipped with a solid-core wood or metal door for best protection. Doors should be self-closing and self-locking. Room doors should have a deadbolt lock with at least a one-inch throw bolt. If the lock appears worn or there are pry marks around the lock area, get another room or move to another hotel. The knob-lock should be hotel-style where you can push a button on the inside knob and block out all keys. This feature is designed to prevent a former guest or housekeeper from entering the room once you are safely inside. Hotels with electronic card access have the advantage of being able to disable former key cards issued to previous guests and unauthorized employees. Electronic locks also will block out most room service keys when you set the deadbolt. The room door should have a wide-angle peephole so you can view who is at the door before opening. Do not open your door to someone who knocks unannounced. Some criminals will pretend to be a bellman, room service, maintenance, or even hotel security to gain admittance to your room. Always call the front desk to confirm their status with the hotel and only open the door if you requested the service. Do not rely on door chains or swing bars to secure the doors while you partially open the door to speak someone. These are unreliable security devices. Teach your children not to open the door of any hotel room without knowing the person on the other side and without your permission. Make sure all windows and sliding doors are secured, if they are accessible from the ground. It is a good idea to test all windows and glass doors to see if they are secure. Beware of balconies where someone can climb from one to another and enter through an open window or sliding door. If the windows or sliding doors are not securable, ask for another room or find another hotel. If your room has an adjoining door to an adjacent room, check it to see that it is secured with a deadbolt lock. If it is questionable, ask for another room. If you are a woman traveling alone or with small children, take advantage of car valet service, if available to avoid the parking lot. After checking-in, ask the bellman or desk clerk to escort you to your room. After unlocking the room, quickly inspect the closets, under the bed, and bathroom including behind the shower curtain before the bellman leaves. Tip the bellman for his efforts. Put the Do-Not-Disturb sign on the doorknob even when you are away, this deters room burglars (it may affect housekeeping service, however). Turn on the television or radio just loud enough to hear through the door to give the appearance that the room is occupied. Leave one light on inside the room if you will return after dark. This helps you see upon re-entry and gives the room the appearance of occupancy from the outside. Always go through the same room inspection routine every time you re-enter. People traveling alone should use caution when using the breakfast order door-knob hanger card, especially if the card lists your name and number of persons in the room. A smart crook can knock on the door posing as room service and use your name as a ruse to gain entry. When you find a suitable hotel that meets your safety standards and will cater to your security needs try to stick with it or with the same hotel chain. Don't be afraid to complain to management to get the safe room you deserve.
Hotel Room Invasions Like the crime of carjacking, most police agencies don’t track home or hotel room invasions as a separate crime. Most police agencies and the FBI will statistically record the crime as a residential burglary or a robbery. Without the ability to track the specific crime of hotel room invasion, little can be done to alert the public as to the frequency of occurrence or devise a law enforcement plan of action to prevent it. How Invasions are Carried Out Hotel room invasion robbers, in contrast, work more often at night when rooms are more likely to be occupied and less staff is on duty. The hotel room invaders usually target the occupant and room location and not necessarily the hotel. The selection process may include women traveling alone or senior citizens, or known drug dealers, or wealthy travelers, for example. It is not unusual for a robber to follow the victim to their hotel room based on the value of the car they were driving or the jewelry or clothes they were wearing... even being seen exiting a high-end retail establishment or restaurant can cause one to be targeted and followed. Hotel room invaders have been known to work casinos and watch for guests flashing large sums of money or jewelry. Hotel room invaders usually work alone or with just one accomplice and they rely on an overwhelming physical confrontation to gain control and instill fear in the room occupants. The violence occurs instantly with an overwhelming explosive force to take control of the room. The hotel room invaders often come equipped with handcuffs, rope, tape, and weapons. Some hotel room robbers appear to enjoy the intimidation, domination, and violence and some claim it is a "rush." Some hotel robbers are also opportunist rapist and may sexually assault their victims. Dangerous Trends Guest room robbers will sometimes use a ruse or impersonation to get you to open the door. They have been known to pretend to be room service, housekeeping, security, or delivering flowers. Clever room robbers might hold a room service tray or flowers in view of the peephole to further the impersonation. Once the door is opened for them, the hotel room invaders will use an explosive amount of force and threats to gain control of the room and produce fear in the victims. Once the occupants are under control, the robbers will begin to collect your portable valuables. Another tactic is for a robber to select a victim in the lobby and ride up in the elevator with them. They will get off on the same floor and pretend walk behind you as if going to their room. This means you need to return to the elevator and return to the lobby. Once the guest opens their door, the robber will force his way in behind them and make his demand. Weapons: A Slight Edge If you habitually carry a firearm, you tend to feel naked without one on your person while in unfamiliar circumstances. Except for active duty military or law enforcement, it is difficult to get the paperwork necessary to legally carry a firearm in a foreign country. Carrying an illegal firearm is a really, really bad idea in an unfamiliar country. Severe penalties, up to and including the death penalty, ensue if caught at it. While Mexico is currently a more dangerous place that either Iraq or Afghanistan, please understand that if NarcoTerrorists get their hands on you, you will be faced with 15 – 20 guys with AKs and M4s. Your measly popgun will just be added to their collection. Going about unarmed in potentially dangerous territory means that situational awareness and “What if...?” scenario planning are not optional. My favorite defense tools include a stun gun, and a metal extendable police baton, camouflaged with a small flashlight replacement for the end ferrule. It looks like a typical metal body flashlight, and the police don't question it. Both the flashlight extension and the baton were purchased for less than USD40 on eBay. For less than USD40 I bought a stun gun with a personal alarm and a flashlight as well as 100v stun buttons on top all included on a unit camouflaged as a cell phone. This is great... though, it will not pass close inspection as a cell phone. What is really good about it is the Argentine thieves usually demand your cell phone and your money, giving no alerts as you reach toward him with a cell phone stun gun. Also, it is very useful in a dark, dangerous area to have it up to your face pretending to talk on it so deployment is almost instantaneous. In less dangerous environments, it rides quite openly and comfortably in a cell phone carrier on my belt. Neither of these items pass airport security inspection for carrying on one's person or carry-on luggage. Checked luggage should be okay. You stand a very good chance to be arrested if you forget. I forgot once, and was able to talk my way out of getting arrested after surrendering my extendable baton. One should be able to get by with taking a ground-down razor sharp screwdriver and/or a multi-tool with a knife blade inside checked luggage. These are handy to carry while in unfamiliar surroundings. I put a plastic barrel of a ball-point pen over the sharp blade of the screwdriver, and it sits upright... held in place by yet another handkerchief... in my left-hand hip pocket. I have practiced with this item until I can whip it out and strike a telling defensive blow in less than a half second. These items pass inspection as tools you just happen to have on you. I sometimes use a belt with a push-blade knife concealed in the belt buckle. My Colombian and Argentine police buddies say that they would not even be suspicious or think of being suspicious of such items, since they don't run into them often... if ever. The Mexican police are a bit more suspicious of such items because they see stuff like this all the time with lots of Mexican nationals just released from prison in the US, as well as weekend commandos from the US. Again, one would face a high probability of arrest and detention if caught attempting to board an airplane with such items on one's person or hand luggage. See the TSA web site. You can carry pepper spray in checked luggage on some airlines. Local cops that are not trying to rip you off typically won't hassle you for having it for self defense. It is not against the law in any part of the world that I am aware of. An Example: Two US guys off a private sailboat walking down the street in beautiful downtown Cartegena, Colombia in broad daylight when five thugs armed with knives tried to pull them into an alley to have their dastardly way. The sailors applied pepper spray and fled easily. The cops were televised grinning and slapping the sailors' backs in congratulation for having foiled the crooks. The reports talked a lot about the fact that the sailors had used pepper spray, and marveling at the fact that the pepper spray had so effectively disabled the crooks that they were still coughing and spitting 20 minutes later when the cops arrested them. The small, compressed gas capsicum pepper spray canister can easily fit in the pocket, even on a key chain and is available anywhere. These canisters are usually available for purchase in any country, perhaps in a salvage/surplus/sporting goods retailer. If you prefer, It is legal to carry a small plastic bottle or baggie with cayenne pepper in checked luggage on an airplane. You could also carry an EMPTY plastic squeeze bottle, and mix up a little cocktail in the bottle with the pepper when you get access to some water at your location. I haven't used it on humans, but it worked really, really well on uncontrolled dogs trying to chase me down the street. Again, carry these items in checked luggage only. The good news is that accurately applied pepper compounds really work. I have seen very tall, large muscle bound guys rolling on the ground screaming for their mommy, while the petite 4 foot 9 inch lady at their side is just crying quietly. The bad news is, don't bring pepper spray to a gunfight. Also, I have used pepper spray on guys lit to the gills on crystal meth doesn't work. Doesn't even slow 'em down. A really, really drunk Mejicano I used it on also didn't seem to notice. Like anything else, pepper spray defense is an excellent option for most people, and can be considered legal almost everywhere. However, it requires good judgment and adult behavior. An Example: Not so long ago, two US guys were leaving their sailboat in an African port. It was around sundown, and they were walking to a restaurant about a mile away. They noticed a group of locals giving them the eye as the sailors ambled away. They soon passed beyond sight of any passers by.. The dock areas were deserted. They noticed a guy running parallel to them on a path about 50 yards away in their direction of travel. They realized that they were in trouble... unarmed at night and in a foreign port with no witnesses. Sure enough, the thug ran up even to them and held them at bay 30 feet away with a pistol as his two thug friends came running up from behind. Even with martial arts training, this was the perfect setup for the thugs... no way to reach the guy with the gun before suffering serious injury, two unarmed thugs shaking them down for all their valuables. The even lost their secret hideaway stashes, and were stripped of all of their goodies. They later said the thugs searched them from the skin out, including shoes. And only the crotch area was safe. Because they were unarmed, they were left alive. The criminal with the gun had the drop on them... going for a gun would have resulted in sustaining serious injuries. This was not a scenario for a quick-draw exhibition. The police and port officials reported that the tourists were lucky. The hijack group was highly experienced and professional. Mostly, the less professional groups in the area at that time just shot you dead and took what they wanted. What have we learned from this? Playing the “What if... ?” game, we may make suggestions.
In this instance they had a few moments after noticing the running gunman where they could have drawn their firearms. When I carry a weapon in a dangerous area, I carry it in a shopping bag or a folded magazine/newspaper... even a hat or cap... with my hand on the grip, finger off the trigger. Just drape a handkerchief over your cocked and locked pistol if necessary, keep your ready weapon in a convenient pocket or under your shirt... but you must have your firearm in your hand ready to use, not holstered. I practice these things in the safety of my home. With 20/20 hindsight, several people were going to get hurt that night if the victims had at least one firearm in their hand... but, at the time, they had no knowledge that the usual practice was to kill the victims, and might have hesitated to fire. They would have guiltily realized at this time that they should not have been there in the first place... realizing that they had ignored the danger clues when leaving the secure marina. They might have realized that their many hours of target practice were not sufficient for a situation requiring split-second instinctive shooting at someone who had 'the drop' on them and would be shooting at them. The only chance with a weapon in this scenario would be to turn to face their attacker, cooly bring up the pistol up and take their best shot. The chances of this action being successful were not good even if they already had the gun out and ready. Gunfights are serious matters. The outcome is serious... as the book says, No Second Place Winner. Using a firearm to wound or kill an attacker will change your life forever. We all have to look at a gunfight as an admission of guilt, of failure. You probably shouldn't have been there in the first place. A gunfight is evidence of bad judgment, unless it happens defending your family in your own home, a carjacking, etc. We must plan to be arrested after such an incident, and carry local phone numbers of attorneys/embassy officials/personal and/or business acquaintances for notification of your situation. Also, it is important to know the local laws regarding such incidents. It would be a good idea to read up on gunfights and take an instinctive shooting course if you plan to travel armed. Most importantly, practice, practice, practice. If using a semi-auto, arm yourself with a CO2 pistol as close to the type you will be using, practice drawing and firing BBs as trained in an instinctive shooting course. Practice walking, running or sitting while shooting. Practice shooting from different types of cover from different positions. Practice instinctive shooting in low light conditions. I use my J-frame .357 with wax bullets/primers/plastic shells that I make up myself. My friends who hate guns actually enjoy this activity and look at it as play. I don't. I practice at 7 – 15 feet--about the useful range for a wax bullet--shooting at a cardboard poster. You can just tape a silhouette target over a cardboard box. You must literally train for hundreds of hours if you want to get into peak performance. And, why would you not want to be the best you can in such critical situations? An Example: A more successful outcome. It was Christmas in Houston, and my friend Sara was at Sharpstown Mall carrying lots of packages and shopping bags as she went to exit the mall to go to her car. Since the lot was crowded, her car was not in an optimal location for security. Sara's situational awareness kicked in. She saw that it had gotten dark early, as it does in Houston at that time of year. She noticed some young thugs hanging around the exit. Sara returned to the mall, sought out a security guard, and requested that he escort her to her car, but he refused. Sara stood at the door for a while, contemplating a route to her car that would avoid parked vans in the lot... the criminals' vehicle of choice in Houston at that time... took careful note of who was visible from her vantage point, and plotted her course. Before she started out, she carefully sat down her packages and removed her keys and... discretely... a very small .22 caliber pistol which she concealed in her strong hand, retrieved her packages with her purse over her gun arm and set out to her car. As she was on her way, she turned around several times to scope out the other people in the lot and what they were doing. She planned to return to the mall and insist on an escort if she didn't like what she saw. When she got to her car, she was putting her keys in the door lock when a young thug rushed up to her and yelled some obscenities and threats at her as he grabbed Sara's purse, attached to her gun arm by the strap. The action caused Sara's pistol's pointy end to actually go up his nose. He said... and I quote Sara's description... “Whoa, Mamma! Be cool.” Sara said, “This is as cool as I get.” The thug's friends were running up to help, but the young thug said, “Let's get outta here She got a PIECE up my nose”, and they all took off running. Sara immediately drove to the nearest police station to report the attempted crime and the mall security guard's indifference. She later found out that the young criminals were part of a large group that kept a rental van parked in a central location, and the various teams were dropping off their ill-gotten swag so their hands were free for more crime without encumbrance. Several older people were hurt that night in the Sharpstown Mall parking lot. One younger victim, a man, tried to resist with his wife and children present and ended up in the hospital with permanent damage from the beating he got. In the two preceding examples we see that options only exist for the wary. The two sailors ignored the little stomach lurch of instinct when they saw thugs eying them. Had the group of thugs that targeted them been less professional, they would probably have died for ignoring their instincts. It only takes one mistake like that... an instant of recognition that was ignored... to end our lives. Sara's example ended well because she understood that only outstanding situational awareness and planning via “What if... ?” scenarios can help us survive potentially dangerous situations. Even though she was armed, Sara's pistol would have ended up as part of the criminal swag had she not had it in her hand and “gotten the drop” on her own private thug. She probably would have sustained a few injuries as the thug pistol-whipped her with her own gun for being dumb enough to carry a pistol she wasn't ready to use. Please keep in mind that thugs hate you and everyone else that has more than they have. They have only contempt for those who have less. As they gain more experience at thuggery, they develop a bored indifference to violence and will kill without remorse and spend their swag on a nice meal immediately after a rewarding murder. If you are in law enforcement, you already know this. Ex-military people who have been in Close Quarters Combat know how to shoot instinctively, how to survive a gun battle, and how to keep their heads on a swivel. They are adept at the “What if... ?” game. Unlike police officers who have survived many criminal confrontations, they may lack other important skill sets. Whomever you may be, it is important to brutally analyze your inventory skill sets, try to determine which sets you lack, and work on trying to improve your chances in a criminal confrontation. Please keep in mind that though Sara did everything right except be in a crime-prone area... not very avoidable in Houston at that time... she had to use every skill set she had plus a lot of nerve to survive unscathed her criminal confrontation. And, yes... street survival is a mind game. Decoy Money: Consider keeping about US$30 to $50 folded up in a place where you can get to it. If an armed thief comes up to you, give it to him. He may just go away and leave you alone. Seriously… it's been reported as a successful ploy and may save you. Be aware that I have seen video of five armed guys stripping a guy on the street at night. There is no hiding place when you’re barefoot and naked, unless you have your goodies in a tube inserted into a body cavity. If you can avoid that by giving them the bait money, good for you. If not… you’re gonna lose the bait money and everything else anyway. Just a thought: consider carrying the bait money in small bills and throw them to the wind so you can get a head start in running to a safer place very fast. I know from personal experience that this works... sometimes. I also carry my pepper spray concealed in my hand with my finger on the trigger while observing suspicious activity. Since I am not allowed to carry a firearm in my residence country, I need the pepper spray to get far enough away to pull my collapsible baton/flashlight combo as I run toward a safer place. And, yes, I have trained in baton tactics, read many instruction manuals and scenarios, and practice, practice, practice. Dress for Success Stun Guns Collapsible baton: This is my all-time favorite. But be advised, to the best of my knowledge a baton is not legal in any part of the world. However, it is easily concealable. I carry my 17 inch (extended) baton from eBay discretely in a jeans hip pocket. I paid extra for an LED flashlight butt from eBay so it appears to be a flashlight with a long handle. It doesn't even look extendable. The flashlight module gives good light and replaces the butt ferrule. If you are fluent in the local language, do not show off or act like a jerk, you may be get by okay with a collapsible baton in most countries. An Example: I have carried my "flashlight with an extensible handle" in Mexico, in Colombia and Argentina on and off cruise ships (the worst questioning I had to endure while going thru bag checks by cruise ship personnel). I had a problem with an federal officer checking hand luggage at the Buenos Aires airport. I had planned to leave it at my Argentine home. I forgot it was in a small bag stuffed in my carry-on luggage. Woops! I was embarrassed. This could have been serious if I wasn't muy fluido en castellano and such an obviously nice, friendly guy. This guy was giving me a bad case of cop eye as I smiled and explained that it was a flashlight. With an expressionless face, he extended it. I showed him my Florida commercial appraiser license and explained it was for seeing into dark corners while appraising buildings. He said... "Sir, this is a weapon". I smiled and stuck it in the box they had there for disposing of small knives, scissors, et cetera. Still smiling, I shrugged my shoulders and got the rest of my stuff together and departed, dignity almost intact. My wife was laughing. I heard the Feds laughing, too. I was out $40 for my own stupidity. It would have been fine in checked luggage. No problem... I got another one via eBay for about $50 and resolved to always re-check the contents carry-on bags prior to leaving home. In any country, it seems reasonable to follow some common sense safety tactics:
If your attempt to be inconspicuous is unsuccessful, your defensive tactics aren't a good idea and you find yourself naked on the side of the road with a bunch of bad guys, here are some tips that were passed down from folks who have succeeded in getting away from the NarcoTerror boys.
[Tomorrow, Part 2.] « Letter Re: Crystal Radios |Main| Notes from JWR: » Tuesday September 29 2009Hypothermia Prevention and Treatment Part 1--Staying Warm, by Lumberjack
This two part series of articles is meant to address a basic physiological need that may be severely threatened both in a TEOTWAWKI situation and any time a lesser emergency takes us out of our bubble of comfort and preparedness. That issue is warmth: specifically how you stay warm and avoid hypothermia when your car slides off the road in a snow storm or you don’t get out of dodge fast enough and find yourself hoofing it overland with only what you can carry, through rain and wind. Part two deals with the possibility you or a loved one or team mate is succumbing to the cold, how you can best treat your patient to stabilize and revive them most effectively. Throughout this article I will not only lay out some basic concepts, examples, and treatments, but just as importantly I will debunk some of the myths about cold weather survival. My qualifications come from numerous years leading wilderness trips in the mountains, alpine search and rescue operations, and teaching wilderness medicine at the university level to doctors, nurses, EMTs and paramedics, and laymen alike. To begin with, it is easier to stay warm than to get warm. The classic newbie mistake when traveling outdoors in cold weather is invariably some variation of the following: you get up in the morning, and it is cold. You layer up, putting on your puffy down jacket and hat and gloves, eat a bite, strike camp, and make ready to move. You are cold and not real excited about taking off your many warm layers to start hiking, so you hoist your pack and set out. 15 minutes later you are warm, 30 minutes later you are hot, and 60 minutes later you stop to take off your warm layers, drink some water, adjust your boots and consult the map. Now soaked in sweat you cool rapidly, and before you finish your snack break you are chilly, so you toss your coat on. When it is time to get moving again, you do so with your coat still on. Every subsequent break follows the same pattern, so start moving warm, get hot, stop, get cold, put jacket on again and get hot again. This is the exact opposite of what you should be doing. Instead follow the habits of every mountaineer: start cool, almost cold in the morning. When you stop to rest, even before you get cold, throw on a warm layer. When you are ready to move again, drop the layer. You will avoid sweating and avoid wasting valuable calories to thermo-regulate. Stay warm, don’t get warm. Notice in that piece I kept referring to layers. This is how you need to dress outdoors. A t-shirt and parka doesn’t cut it. You want a base layer (think polypropylene or wool or silk long underwear) amid layer (fleece pull over, wool sweater) and a shell layer (windproof/waterproof) at a minimum, with an option for a puffy layer like a down jacket or vest. How heavy and warm these layers are depends largely on the environment you anticipate, colder equals heavier. But the concept of layering stays the same. Notice what I did not include here: cotton. The oft repeated adage of wilderness medicine is: cotton kills. The cell structure of the cotton fabric collapses when wet, destroying its ability to insulate (keep you warm). Wet cotton in a cold environment is worse than nothing. Excellent in a desert for its breathability and also the same habit of retaining moisture and evaporating to keep you cool, in a cold environment is an invitation to disaster. Fabrics should be wool, silk, or synthetic. Wool and synthetic do not collapse when wet and will keep you warm even soaking wet (albeit not quite as warm, but better than nothing and much better than cotton). So the white cotton long johns you find at Wal-Mart are out. Invest in polypro or wool for you layers (don’t forget socks). Why do I keep hammering away at sweat and cotton? Because moisture is the enemy when it comes to keeping you warm. Water conducts heat away from the body 15 times faster than air. You can survive a lot longer in 32 degree air than 32 degree water, whether you are immersed in it or because your clothes are wet. So how to stay warm in the field? First, fuel the machine. We are talking food, calories, fats and carbs. No time for a diet, eating foods with a high fat content will keep you warm longer. I have been on winter expeditions where before going to bed each night my hot drink consists of hot cocoa powder, milk powder, peanut butter, a handful of chocolate chips, and a spoonful of butter or margarine, with brown sugar and topped off with hot water. Sounds terrible in August in the flat lands, but on a winter’s night the body craves it when the temperatures drop. While we are on the topic, let’s talk about sleeping warm. Aside from fueling the machine, you need to think of your sleeping bag as a thermos: keeps hot things hot and cold things cold. So don’t go to bed cold. Do jumping jacks, walk around, get in and do push-ups and rub your feet to get the blood flowing and get them warm. Start out warm in your bag and you will stay warm. A mat or pad is essential to getting you off the cold hard ground, not because it is hard, but because it is cold! Conduction will draw heat out of you all night long. I like a closed cell foam pad from my shoulders to knees because it is cheap, light, and nearly indestructible. Thermarest air pads are great and comfy but have the potential to leak air with extreme use. Pine boughs, pine needles, coiled rope, empty backpacks, clothes you aren’t wearing; all help keep you off the ground and warm. Speaking of clothes, there is the old saw about sleeping naked in your bag. This is really only applicable if the clothes you would be wearing are either: 1) cotton 2) wet or 3) constricting blood flow. And I usually overlook #2 if they are only damp. Otherwise wear you layers to bed and you’ll be warmer than if you had slept naked. Other tips: empty your bladder. Yes, I know it is cold out there and warm in your bag, but do you know how many kCal it takes to keep that ½-1 liter of urine in your bladder at 98.6 degrees? Lots! And that is energy that could be keeping you warm, so empty your bladder, feel better, be warmer. If it is a snow camping situation, do as most mountaineers do and use a pee bottle (be sure it has a different tactile feel in the dark than your regular water bottle). Yes, there are female adapters out there. Speaking of bottles, taking a hot water bottle to bed with you insulted in a wool sock and stashed in your sleeping bag at the foot to keep your toes warm or on your chest to keep your core warm. Done properly it will still be warm in the morning. If I’m not in bear country I keep a high energy snack close at hand for a midnight warmer; peanut butter, cheese, or chocolate all work well. Wearing a wool or synthetic hat to bed, which covers the ears, and scarf around the neck if your upper layers don’t zip up that high are also big time heat retainers. Avoiding the temptation to roll over and cover your face with your sleeping bag will keep your breath from condensing into water, possibly freezing, and then melting and wetting your sleeping bag when you pack up in the morning. A final consideration for sleeping warm addresses this issue of a potentially wet sleeping bag: down is warmer on a per/weight basis than any other insulation but clumps and fails entirely when wet. Synthetic is almost as light and warm as down, but will still insulate when wet. Cotton or square shaped Coleman brand type bags should be used as dog house liners or for indoor kid’s sleep-overs. Take home points for staying warm and preventing hypothermia: 1) Fuel the machine 2) Stay dry 3) Sleep warm 4) These concepts are not for winter snow expeditions alone; most hypothermia happens in the fall and spring in what are normally considered “moderate” temps because people aren’t prepared or don’t consider the possibility of rain, wind, or nighttime. Next time I will address signs and symptoms of hypothermia and how to treat it effectively in the field. - Lumberjack « Economics and Investing: |Main| The SurvivalBlog Mirror Site Project » Friday September 25 2009Grub and Gear--Lessons Learned from an Alaskan Trapper, by Old DogJames, I'd like to add: Lord Bless and Keep and Shine. - Cloudwarmer « Letter Re: Range Report from Another Distaff Appleseed Shooter |Main| Notes from JWR: » Thursday September 24 2009Tactical River Crossings--An Emergency Alternative to Bridges, by Jacob R.Many of you could be faced with the unique challenge of crossing a river during any number of “The End Of The World As We Know It” (TEOTWAWKI) scenarios. I have pre-positioned a respectable stock of supplies at my primary “Get Out Of Dodge” (G.O.O.D.) retreat site, however have multiple caches at various locations to ensure my family has a fighting chance at survival. While I hope and pray to be able to evacuate my family safely via vehicle just prior to any TEOTWAWKI scenario. Murphy’s Law reminds us that, “What can go wrong, will go wrong.” Hence any prudent planner should be prepared to evacuate on foot. In this article I will discuss how to successfully cross both open and ice-covered rivers without the use of traditional modern means such as the utilization of bridges and/or boats. I will not be distinguishing between day or night crossings. That choice is left to you after reviewing your specific situation and circumstances. Before I begin I want to emphasize the importance of not limiting yourself to only the use of main transportation routes that force you to place you and your loved ones at a tactical disadvantage. Recommended Equipment:
Recommend Prior Knowledge: It is also encouraged to clearly know the warning signs, symptoms, and treatment for hypothermia. No matter the weather conditions, hypothermia is of major concern and should always be watched for post any crossing attempt. I can not stress how important this is. Immersion hypothermia is much more rapidly onset and cools the core 25 times faster due to waters excellent conduction factor. Also, most non-mentally and/or physically prepared individuals can swim approximately a half mile in 50° F water. Water colder than 45° F can bring on hypothermia in less than an hour. Wearing clothes will help insulate you when in the water, however will contribute to hypothermia once you emerge from the water. You must have a plan to deal with this. I make my own recommendation (see below). However you need to evaluate your own circumstance and exercise good tactical judgment. Lastly, you should know the rough guidelines for new clear ice minimum safe thickness. To obtain this information, check with your local Department of Natural Resources (DNR). According to the Minnesota DNR, you need approximately 4 inches of ice for safe individual on-foot travel and anything under 2 inches is considered highly unsafe. Scenario: For what ever the reason may be “we” are unable to G.O.O.D. to “our” retreat and are now forced to evacuate “ourselves” and possibly “our family” on foot. By choosing to do so, many of “us” are forced to navigate multiple river crossings. “We‘ve” chosen to avoid bridges, knowing that there often immediately overwhelmed and/or under a controlling force due to there natural design and choking nature. Non-Fordable Deep Open Water River Crossing Step 1. Step 2. Step 3. Begin by inflating an inflatable inner tube with the compact manual bicycle pump. Once inflated, use either duct tape and/or 550 parachute cord to form a makeshift cargo net along the inside of the now inflated inner tube. Once completed you will have successfully made your Floatation Aid. Step 4. Step 5. Step 6. Step 7. Ice-Covered River Crossing For ice covered river crossings extreme caution is advised! This should be done only after much consideration; your specific climate and location will dictate these circumstances. A key principle to remember when crossing any frozen waterway is “distribution of weight.” When determining a crossing site, look for an area of the river that is straight and/or an area that precedes a bend. Remember, the water is still flowing under the ice and your goal is to cross at a location where the current is slower and consistent. However, this does not guarantee any safer ice conditions. Step 1. Step 2. Step 3. Step 4. Step 5. Step 6. Step 7. Conclusion: Hopefully you found this helpful, and at a very minimum, it stimulated your mind to think and be resourceful when approaching your environment. I truly hope that TEOTWAWKI never comes, but I’m reassured due to my all hazard planning, preparedness, and tactical mindset that my family and I stand a greater chance of survival compared to the “Joneses” down the street. Take Care and God Bless! « Economics and Investing: |Main| Note from JWR: » Tuesday September 22 2009Letter Re: Grub and Gear--Lessons Learned from an Alaskan TrapperJames, I grew up in California listing to stories from my grandfather about Alaska and the Yukon. When I graduated from high school my grandfather gave me his remote trapping cabin in Alaska. At 18 I had a lot to learn and discovered many things the hard way. I was lucky to survive the first year. When I got to Alaska I met my Grandfather’s old trapping partner. He told me that the cabin was fully stocked with everything including food. Enough food and supplies for at least one winter. When I started asking him questions on how to trap he told me “sonny I have not got the time to teach you and since you don’t have to build the cabin you will have time to figure it out. He added half under his breath” providing you do not fall through the ice or freeze to death. He also said something to the effect that if he had not owed my grandfather a favor he would never give his ½ of the cabin to a long haired hippy kid from California. I had to promise the old Sourdough that I would have all of his traps flown back to town at the end of the trapping season or buy the traps from him. My first winter was a disaster. Before this the longest I had been in the wilderness was a 23 day Outward Bound survival class that I attended the year before and I had never spent a winter in a cold environment. To get to the trapping cabin it was at least a two week walk from the end of closest dirt road or a 1:20 hour flight in a bush plane. The cheapest way to fly to the cabin was in a Piper PA-18 Super Cub on tundra tires. The pilot told me he could carry 1 passenger and 200 lbs of supplies or a total of 400 pounds of supplies and no passenger. When the pilot dropped me off he told me “If I am in the area I will check on you” He did not have any charters that way so he did not check on me that winter. I got out of the plane with a full back pack of gear, a duffel bag of supplies and a 30-06 rifle. I had to walk a few miles to the cabin. I left the duffel bag in a tree to retrieve later. With a full back pack and my rifle I walked as fast as I could to the cabin. I was excited to see “My cabin” at last. What a shock I had when I saw the cabin! The old Trapper had lived many winters in the cabin and told me it was built strong. What I found was a small log shack with a dirt floor and sod roof. In the cabin a wood stove, a hand built bed frame and table. A old bed mattress suspended by wire from the rafters. There were traps, snow shoes, ax, bow saw, one man cross cut saw, files, a lantern and the other basics that are needed to survive the Alaska winter as a trapper. The trapper had not been to the cabin for four years. At least 60% of the food supply that I was counting on had been eaten by rodents or had spoiled. First lesson learned! If you count on food to be there when you need it, You better have had your food stored in a very secure way or you may go hungry. Theft is also something to be considered in today’s society and in TEOTWAWKI losing your food cache would be disastrous Most people think it must have been boring spending 4 ½ months alone in a cabin. The reality is I was too busy just trying to cut enough wood to stay warm and skin the marten, fox or wolf that I trapped or shot. I was cold, hungry and exhausted most of the time. I never had the time to get board. Being a green horn at trapping I only averaged 1 animal a week and it was usually shot instead of trapped. The first winter at the cabin. As soon as I walked into the cabin I I knew I was in trouble. I did not have the 4-to-5 month supply of food I needed. I had a topo map of the trapping area only but did not have the maps to get me back to the road or town, Second lesson! Make your Egress plans ahead of time and have at least 2 good contingency plans. Thankfully in the cabin there were two steel drums with snap ring lids that were full of dry goods and on the shelves were some cans of dried goods that were also still good. The following list is what was still edible in the cabin as best as I can remember
The supplies along with a young moose I shot did keep me alive but it was no fun. I had youth and enthusiasm on my side and knew the situation was temporary. I decided to just make it a challenge and kind of live some of my grandfather's stories first hand for myself. I had in my pack 1 roll of toilet paper but there was none at the cabin Third Lesson! Birch bark, snow or small pine cones work but make a very poor substitute for toilet paper. I also learned later that winter that at -40 your butt will freeze to a wood toilet seat in the outhouse. Make a toilet seat for the outhouse out of hard blue Styrofoam for winter will make using the outhouse less of a pain in the butt. As fall quickly turned to winter the lake next to the cabin froze and the temp continued to drop. The high quality mountaineering boots I had used in the high Sierra mountains of California and Nevada were not anywhere near warm enough and did not have removable liners so the boots were hard to dry. Forth lesson Pac boots with 2 sets of liners or bunny boots are must have items for cold environments. Many times during the winter I could have shot Grouse or Ptarmigan If I had a 22 pistol. That would have added much wanted variety to the menu. The other problem I learned is if you get a wolf or wolverine in one of your traps a 30-06 blows too big a hole in the hide and destroys most of the value of the fur. Fifth Lesson! a .22 rifle or pistol is a must have item. After 2 months my clothes were in bad shape. Most Light weight high tech clothing used for backpacking or mountaineering is not designed for day to day hard use and does not hold up to rigors outdoor work for the long haul. High quality wool clothing does a lot better over the long haul and is not susceptible to melting next to a fire like nylon is. Yes wool is heavy and takes longer to dry but in my opinion for working in the woods wool is the way to go. Sixth lesson ! clothing made for loggers, Surveyors and commercial fisherman may be heavy but it last a lot better than sporting gear. Filson is the best. My diet was boring and I was always hungry after two months. I started getting sick and my teeth seemed to be getting loose. It finally dawned on me that I had no intake of Vitamin C. I may have had Scurvy. Remembering something I learned from my grandfather I started eating rose hips that were dried and still hanging on a few bushes near the cabin. Thankfully we did not have deep snows that year so I could find a few rose hips. I was lucky! Seventh Lesson! make sure you have a source of Vitamin C. Every time I took my rifle inside the warm cabin it would condensate and the rifle would get wet. Eighth Lesson If you bring a rifle into a warm cabin from a below freezing environment it will condensate, this promotes corrosion in addition the moisture in the bolt may be frozen the next time you are outside in the cold. If you do bring a weapon in from the cold strip it down, dry it and clean it. I left my rifle outside next to the door for most of the winter and only brought it in to clean. This would not work in a TEOTWAWKI so other tactics will have to be developed. One morning there was a small earth quake that got me to thinking of my family and the outside world. Started felling very alone. Starting thinking what if the Russians had dropped “the bomb” I would not know it. Lesson #9! Being able to at least hear what is going on in the outside world helps your mental attitude a lot. A radio to listen to the news was smoothing I longed for. Snow shoes are easy to use and most anyone will figure them out quickly. When you are working on snow shoes you will fall now and then. Lesson # 10 tape the muzzle of your rifle to keep snow out of the barrel when you take the invariable header into the snow. I use electrical tape or put a condom over the muzzle of all my rifles in the field to keep everything out of the barrel. It will not affect accuracy unless you are shooting over 300 yards. The winter was full of hardship and big education. I did enjoy it but given a choice I would not want to repeat that Winter. In the spring I sold my furs in Anchorage. The fur buyer could tell I had never trapped before as the way I had prepared the pelts was poor at best. I got .20 cents on the dollar for my pelts and I think that was generous on the part of the fur buyer. 4-½ months of hard work and after paying the bush pilot along with the money I still owed the trapper I would have less than $100. The trapper met me at the fur buyer after paying him for his traps he was now very friendly and asked me many questions. He encouraged me to go back for at least one more winter. He told me to go get a bath and haircut and meet him at the White Spot cafe down the street in downtown Anchorage and he would buy me a good meal. While eating he handed me a the following list
This was the list of supplies that the trapper had the pilot bring to the cabin each spring when the plane came to pick him up. This filled what would have otherwise been an empty plane. In early April the lake next to the cabin was still frozen so the plane would land on skis and taxi next to the cabin. The pilot and trapper would put the supplies into the cabin then the pilot flew the trapper back to town. The Trapper then informed me that he had purchased the supplies for me and was having them flown to the cabin along with 2 more steel drums to safely store the supplies in. The "Rifle and a Backpack" Myth I often get a chuckle from people that think they can fill a back pack and head into the woods and survive long term with what is in a back pack. Until recently I spent most of my life guiding in Alaska and in Africa. I spent an average 110 days a year living out of a back pack under a tarp or in a pup tent, and another 180 days each year living in a remote cabins without electricity or running water. In an uninhabited game rich environment with a rifle and only a back pack of gear I could survive for a period of time. How long could I survive? I do not know as there are too many variables. What I do know is in the case of TEOTWAWKI where many people would be fleeing the cities and overcrowding the wild places looking for food I could not survive trying to live off the land with only a back pack full of gear. There will simply not be the recourses available. If a skilled person had no ethics they could take to stealing, looting, probably murder/cannibalism they might make it long term starting with only a back pack full of gear. For me and my family I believe in preparing now and stocking up while food and supplies are available and reasonably priced. In the early 1980s I bought a lot of my supplies from a sporting goods/gun store in Anchorage. The store maintained an excellent inventory for hunters, trappers or survivalists. The store manager could talk the talk on both survival and hunting. One fall he hired me to take him on a 14-day bow hunting trip into the Alaska bush and film the adventure. He also hired a young guy that had just moved to Alaska from Georgia to help carry camera gear. I was concerned regarding the greenhorn from Georgia and even more concerned when I saw his marginal gear. The Georgia greenhorn however did fine and was a huge help on the trip. The trip however was a complete failure. The store manager had every neat gadget I had ever seen and many that I had never heard of. His pack was too full to carry any of the food or camera gear. He was out of shape and his pack was also too heavy for him to comfortably carry. After the float plane dropped us off on a high mountain lake we planned to walk for a week to my cabin hunting Dall Sheep on the way. Then at the Cabin we planned to hunt Moose and Grizzly. During the first 2 days the store manager left a lot of gadgets and some much needed gear on the trail to lighten his pack. I was stunned as I thought this guy knew his stuff but he was totally bewildered on how to apply his knowledge or gear in the field. One of the things I still clearly remember is he actually dumped all of his extra socks and his rain gear at the first nights camp. Leaving that gear behind cost him dearly. The Greenhorn from Georgia was a farm kid and was able to adapt to the Alaska bush even with his marginal gear and lack of knowledge of the Alaska bush. The store manager never made a single stalk on any animal as it became a challenge to just get the store manager to the cabin. By the time we got him to the cabin his feet were so badly blistered he could hardly walk and could not even carry his own pack or bow. This rambling story actually has a point. I had heard the store manager tell many people before our trip that with his properly equipped backpack he could easily survive in the bush indefinitely. My grandfather use to say: "Ignorance is bliss but it will not put food on the table." My Second Winter I still had a lot to learn but this winter was a lot better. First thing when I arrived at the cabin was to see that the supplies were all there and in fine shape. I also had topo maps and now knew 3 different routes to get back to civilization. It was at least a 2 week walk but I at least knew the routes to get there. In a TEOTWAWKI situation if you are at your retreat in the winter you will probably also get into a routine. That could be both good and bad. Think security and mix the times up so ambush is harder for the goons to set up. Winter set in, an in my second winter in the cabin, it did not take long to get into my routine. Every day starts the same. At approximately 6:00 A.M. The alarm clock goes off. What I mean the stove has only a few coals left and the cabin is freezing so I have to get up and stoke the fire. Then step outside into the extreme cold. Cut a log into rounds and this is done in the dark. Then go down to the lake still in the dark (batteries for the flashlight are too precious to waste and so is gas for the lantern) carefully chip the ice around each of five fishing lines with a hatchet. Pull up the hook hoping for a burbut (fresh water ling cod) reset the bait, haul water back to the cabin. If I had not caught a fish for breakfast then on the meat pole next to the cabin I used the saw and cut off a frozen chunk of caribou. Still dark and I am cold, step into the cabin warm up my frozen hands, dry my gloves and cook breakfast on the wood stove. Then put the dutch oven with beans, lentils or rice on the wood stove to rehydrate while I am gone for the day. Pack my lunch: two pancakes with a slab of cooked caribou meat in the middle, also put one tablespoon of tang into my insulated water bottle then fill it with hot water from the pot on the stove. Warm tang makes a nice mid morning warm up on the trail and is a source of Vitamin C. As it is just starting to get light strap on the snow shoes and head out pulling the sled. If it has not snowed I can walk on top of the packed trail with the snow shoes on the sled. The day is spent dragging the sled checking and resetting traps while constantly looking for a wolf, fox or wolverine to shoot. During each day I must also find a dry standing dead spruce tree to cut down and limb with the ax then using the sled haul it back to the cabin. Must always be on my main trail with everything tied onto the sled before it is completely dark. Days are short: the mid-winter sun is only up for 4 ½ hrs. I used my flashlight is only for emergencies. Following a packed trail is easy in the dark just remember to get behind the sled on any downhill or the sled will hit you in the back of your legs and could break a snowshoe or your leg. Usually get back to the cabin long after dark. Lesson # 11 Cross country skis are no substitute for snow shoes. The snow shoes at the cabin were old and on the last legs of useful life. Instead of bringing a new set of snow shoes I had purchased a new set of back country cross country skis to the cabin. I thought I would use the snow shoes as a backup. Learned that skis are not as good to work on as snow shoes for doing chores or trapping. Skis have a place and can save time but are not a replacement for snow shoes. In snow country snow shoes are essential and skis are a nice luxury. Each night when I finally arrive at the cabin I am tired and hungry. First thing is to start the fire then fix dinner. After dinner if I was lucky that day I can light the lantern and skin whatever I had trapped or shot after it has thawed. 9:15 PM is the highlight of the day! I get to listen to the AM radio for 45 minutes. Lesson #8 and had brought a radio this time. Always hoping Caribou Clatters has a message for me from my family. Allow myself 45 minutes to read by lantern or candle light. 11:00 PM re-stoke the fire and collapse on the bed. The radio, dinner and sleep are the reward of a day’s hard work. Around 2:30 AM the fire has burned to just a few coals and I get cold, get up put more wood on and go back to sleep. The next thing I know it is 6:00 AM the fire has burned to just a few coals and it is freezing in the cabin and the day starts all over again. Lesson #12 In a cold winter climate Use no oil in the bolt or trigger assembly of your rifle as it may freeze. I tried to shoot at a wolf (a wolf hide was then worth $450) when I pulled the trigger on my rifle it only went click. The firing pin would not strike the primer with enough force to set off the primer. After the second try and another click the wolf ran off and out of range. That was only an expensive lesson. In a TEOTWAWKI it could have been some one shooting at me and I would have had a useless rifle. On my daily trips to check the fishing lines and get water I knew the ice was 28” thick and still getting thicker each week. A December day the temp was -27 F and I was crossing the outlet end of a small lake to check out some tracks. Not worrying as I thought the ice was 28” thick everywhere I fell through the ice and found myself waist deep in water. This was two miles from my cabin It was all I could do to make it to the cabin. Lesson #13 any out let or inlet of a frozen lake may have thin ice also a warm spring or other things can cause thin ice. The fire was out in my stove and no coals were left. I had a very hard time getting a fire started and as a last resort used white gas and almost burned down the cabin. Lesson #14 have the kindling and all the fixings of a fire ready any time you leave your cabin. You never know when someone may be at the end of their strength and need to get a fire going. One evening in early January I returned to the cabin to find a note and care package on the table from the bush pilot. The pilot had brought me a bag of oranges, a fruit cake and a newspaper. He also left three letters from my family. It was if I had won the lottery As the snow got deeper during the winter I started finding that many animals liked to use my packed trail. I learned never underestimate the danger of a moose particularly in the winter if they are on a packed trail they may charge you instead of going into deep snow. I had a cow moose chase me up a tree then stomp my on sled and break one of my snow shoes. Lesson #15 Moose are dangerous, especially late winter In early February I came across Grizzly tracks in the snow. I was shocked as I thought that bears would be in the den all winter. I followed the tracks and found the bear had made a moose kill. Lesson # 16 Grizzly bears and black bears do not truly hibernate and may be out of the den during any month of the year. Over the years I learned if a bear is away from his den in the winter it will be hungry and grumpy. As a kid I loved watching western movies. It seemed to me cowboys wore their handgun in a low slung fast draw holster and I thought that was cool. The western style fast draw holsters I tried in the bush were useless. I now see that some law enforcement and military teams are using a thigh mounted holster. I am not disputing the tactical points of that method but if you are working in the woods you will occasionally fall into snow or mud. That is when you want your hand gun in a full flap holster or in a normal holster worn under the last layer of clothing. Getting your hand gun into your hand fast is of no use if it will not fire when you need it. Lesson #18 Select holsters that will allow you to comfortably carry your hand gun with you at all times and will protect the weapon from the elements. I have tried over 40 different holsters and method of carrying my handgun. I strongly suggest you experiment now on how to carry your own handgun. Find something that works for you. I presently use three different holsters:
In March, the bush pilot landed on the frozen lake with 400 lbs of supplies. He helped me put the food into the steel drums for the next trapping season then flew me back to town. I had spent 160 days alone in the bush trapping. I sold my furs to the fur buyer in Anchorage. After paying the bush pilot for the supplies and flights to the cabin and back I had cleared $2,700. I learned a lot that winter and over the years refined the old trappers list to keep me well fed and a lot happier. A More Complete Supply List
« Economics and Investing: |Main| Note from JWR: » Thursday September 17 2009Bug Out and Refugee Considerations, by Brad T.
I'd like to shed some light on what it might be like to move across an unfamiliar area without money or adequate supplies. This might come in handy when you have to bug out following a natural disaster or other societal disruption. It might provide tips on how to avoid apprehension or detection while traveling. In addition, it might help you in determining a place for your retreat and anticipating refugees. Finally it might prepare you for some of the emotional and physical stresses you will face if you find yourself bugging out. I live on the US Mexico border and there is a constant flow of illegal aliens and drug smugglers passing through and around my city. I live in the busiest area for smuggling drugs and people in the United States. Being a Border Patrol agent I also have up to date information on the trends and tactics illegal aliens and drug smugglers use to avoid detection and move to the interior of the United States. I have also tracked and apprehended countless groups of illegal aliens and drug smugglers. I will try to pass on some of my knowledge of how these people move from Mexico to the United States. Most illegal aliens are extremely poor and are willing to walk through the desert for days or weeks, sometimes with small children. There are exceptions to this; most of these are drug smugglers. They have plenty of money, support vehicles, scouts and communication equipment. My focus in this article will be aliens that jump the fence and walk across the desert. They mostly move at night without flashlights. During the day they sleep in clumps of trees or rocks or in caves. They seldom travel alone. Most are in groups of two to twenty. The guides have developed networks of trails and hiding spots to move through the desert. Some larger groups have several guides with one or more on a high ridge top to provide information about the movements of the Border Patrol or other people that will inform law enforcement of their location. The guides use cell phones or two way radios to communicate. They guide their groups to water in cattle tanks or streams. The groups can go for days without eating. When we apprehend a group in is common for them to tell us about dead bodies they passed on their way. They also tell us of injured or sick aliens that were left behind. Most of the apprehended aliens ask for food and water right away. When we give them food they eat ravenously. In most cases the guides follow natural and manmade landmarks. The most obvious are game trails and dirt roads. They also follow canyons, natural gas lines, electrical power lines, railroad tracks, rivers and fence lines. For example a group will travel 50 yards off to the side of railroad tracks in thick brush. (This might be a factor to consider when choosing a retreat location. You don’t want groups of refugees traveling near your retreat because they are following railroad tracks or electrical power lines.) They seldom travel on high ridges because our cameras and radar will pick up their movements. They usually walk down trails with thick trees and bushes providing cover. They like to move through deep canyons with sandy washes at the bottom. Many trails military crest ridges where our cameras cannot see. When they must travel through flat open areas they might wait for hours until all the Border Patrol vehicles clear from the area before they continue. During the summer they travel at night because it is cooler. If they have enough water they will continue during the day and only stop when they absolutely have to sleep or if they get heat exhaustion. Heat exhaustion affects your judgment and can lead to heat stroke and death very quickly. The best way to prevent this is to get out of the heat, drink plenty of water and reduce your physical activity. For some reason people with heat exhaustion remove their shoes. It does not occur to them to drink the rest of their water. I once found an alien under a tree nearly dead with a full bottle of water. When EMS arrived they had to give him four IV bags before he finally had to pee. It just shows how heat exhaustion can affect your judgment. Another time we found an alien sitting up with his legs crossed in the middle of a paved road with his shoes removed. He died sitting there waiting for a car to come rescue him. He probably did not realize that the blacktop in the sun is one of the hottest places for him to stop. During the winter they walk at night because it is too cold to sit still. When there is no cloud cover the temperature can drop well below freezing. We use long range FLIR cameras and thermal imaging to locate groups. These cameras show small changes in temperature and you can actually see the cold air collected in valleys on still nights. A cow or rabbit shows up as a bright white spot on the screen because it is so warm compared to the surroundings. When groups stop on cold nights they usually stop at the military crest of a hill because the air is warmer at the top of a hill. During the day they sleep in areas hidden by trees and bushes. They huddle together to keep warm and many of the women get raped or assaulted. We find the "lay-ups" littered with empty food containers, water bottles, clothing and backpacks. There are some lay-ups that are so filled with junk it looks like you stumbled onto a landfill. This is also a common area to find dead bodies. Part of my job is to search apprehended aliens for weapons or drugs. I have noticed they all carry the same items with very little variance. They are all wearing two or more pairs of pants and several shirts. I assume this is to avoid stickers and thorns and to keep warm. In the winter they have three or more pairs of pants and long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts and beanie caps. Their clothing is almost always dark colored. Most of the clothing is cotton and is very worn out. I have never caught an alien wearing Gore-tex or down. I can count on one hand the number of aliens I have caught wearing gloves. Some of them have backpacks with meager supplies of food and water. The food is usually tortillas, bread and sometimes canned food. I have also seen quite a few aliens with Pedialyte. Other items include a cigarette lighter, plastic bag with raw garlic, identification cards, money and toilet paper. I am not sure what the garlic if for, maybe to keep mosquitoes away. When I ask them they usually just shrug and say they eat it. Some carry religious articles like rosary necklaces or virgin Guadalupe candles. This always amazes me they would carry a 2-pound candle for miles when they could have packed more food or water. Other items I find but not as often include cell phones, kitchen knives, medicine and pictures of family members. I have never found a flashlight, multi-tool, compass, GPS, duct tape or other items usually associated with a bug out bag. Most of the backpacks are very poor quality with one or more zippers broken. You would be amazed at how they patch, wire and tie backpacks closed when the zippers break. The water containers you could find at a gas station, anywhere from quart to gallon size. If the aliens do not have a backpack they carry the bottles in their hands. Sometimes they tie two of them together and sling them over their shoulder. Some of the water bottles are painted flat black so they cannot be seen at a distance. If I catch the group far enough north where they have refilled their bottles from tanks or streams the water is very dirty. I don’t think they have the time or perhaps even the knowledge to filter it through a shirt. I have actually seen tadpoles and small water creatures swimming in water bottles of apprehended aliens. One thing I will never get used to is the smell of twenty people that have traveled a week through the desert without a shower. I have located and apprehended a group at night using only my sense of smell. I am not joking. When we pile them in our transport vans the smell is overwhelming. Most of them are dehydrated and most have cuts and scratches. By the time we catch them the cuts are infected. I once chased a group through a field of jumping cholla [cactus] at night. When I caught them they were covered in cactus spines. They had no tools to remove the spines so they were using fingers and teeth to try to remove them. Twisted and broken ankles are also common. Many of the women are pregnant. If they can get into the United States to have their children then those kids will be United States citizens. It is amazing how many husbands leave their wives and children behind when their group gets chased by Border Patrol. The hardest thing to see is finding small children that were left behind. One day we found a six year old boy wandering through the desert because he became separated from his mom the night before. If was cannot find the parents the children are returned to Mexico and will end up in an orphanage. This kind of thing happens almost every day. Another time we found a guy wandering around and he was almost delirious. He could barley talk and looked dazed. When we finally got him back to our station he did not want to eat or drink. He just sat on a bench and stared at the ground. He later told us that a week earlier he paid a guide to get him and his wife and three year old daughter into the United States. Once he crossed the border the guide hit him on the head and disappeared with his wife and daughter. He had spent the following week wandering around looking for his wife and daughter. I think that under such circumstances I would be a wreck too. Some of the lessons I have learned from them: You can do much more than you think you can with much less. Using guides in unfamiliar areas is very valuable to avoid detection but don’t trust them. Also carry basic medical supplies and drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration. Finally don’t waste your money and time on useless items. If you have never hiked a trail at night without a flashlight you need to try it. It is amazing how much you can see and hear when hiking at night. Stop frequently and listen for 30 seconds at a time. One night I heard a noise that was over 30 yards away from me. I judged by the amount of noise it was a group of people. I went over to investigate and was surprised to find a slow moving tortoise walking over dry leaves. It is amazing how much sound a person walking makes. I also have learned by experience that certain pieces of gear are essential for my job. Some of these I would discard if I was traveling cross country in a bug out scenario. I think weight would be the primary factor. When I go out in the field I always wear gloves to avoid scratches and cuts on my hands. I also wear eye protection, even at night. I once saw an alien that had his eye jabbed by a branch at night. It was horrible. I almost always have scratches on my face from walking down trails with thorns and branches coming across the path. I never use a flashlight unless I am tracking, and then it is only briefly. I carry small electrolyte packets with me and plenty of water. I wear long sleeve shirts. I also carry a GPS receiver, electrical tape, pocket knife and plenty of extra ammunition. « Influenza Pandemic Update: |Main| The Disaster Garden--What's Not in the Can, by C. the Old Farmer » Saturday September 12 2009Letter Re: Should I Buy Camouflage Web Gear?Sir, I see a lot of very nice, military or military-looking LBE equipment. Like a tactical vest with magazine pouches and hydration bladders and so forth. And I can get nice military or military-looking clothes (in [digital camouflage] ACU [pattern], for example). I drool over the cool looking gear. However, other than the magazine pouches, most of the same equipment (hydration, backpack, medical kit, et cetera) can be bought from outdoor equipment stores. In non-military-looking forms. Think REI vs. ACU. [JWR Adds: For our foreign readers: REI is a major chain of outdoor gear stores that caters to the Sierra Club backpacking crowd, that sells lots of backpacks and parkas in colors like red and royal blue.] So here’s my question: In a TEOTWAWKI situation, where you are moving to a safe(er) place because you had to leave your refuge or you are out gathering supplies/trading/patrolling, do you really want to look like a well-put together military man in matching ACU clothes and gear? All nicely kitted out in black, olive drab, or ACU ninja wear™… Or do you want to look like somebody in a civilian outdoor camping/survival clothes that just happen to conceal a LBE with mags etc.? Same even goes for your rifle – the all black ninja AR-15 is a nice useful gun (I love mine!), but can you dress one up to look more like a bolt-action hunting rifle? It just struck me that perhaps being all Rambo looking has its downsides. Upside is you might scare bad guys off, downside is if I was observing from concealment, nervously, Commando-man vs. REI-man I might just rather shoot Commando man in the head from as far away as I can and I might just want to observe/talk to REI man first, all other things being equal. Not 100% rational, but certainly real… Less extreme, looking more ad-hoc put together in your equipment and dress certainly helps not imply you have plenty of food, ammunition, and other supplies hidden away somewhere. (That is, you look like less of a target…) Doubly so if it’s not all the way to post-apocalypse TEOTWAWKI and I’m a law enforcement officer. - Hugh JWR Replies: When buying CamelBaks « Letter Re: A Practical Use for Post-1982 US Zinc Pennies |Main| Jim's Quote of the Day: » Thursday September 10 2009Letter Re: Living in the Time After TEOTWAWKI
Dear Mr. Rawles, However, I have not seen anyone talk about how we will boot strap ourselves to back towards some sort of village life and civil society[, in the event of TEOTWAWKI]. In your novel "Patriots" , you touch on this with the Troy Barter Faire, and then fast forward at the end of the book to this being an accomplished fact. In the novel "One
Second After", the author makes the point that an EMP event could have pushed people back to a 19th century lifestyle, but things were more medieval because no one had the knowledge of how In a post-SHTF scenario, there won't be much call for fibre-channel administrators, but there will be a demand for bakers and candle makers. What I suggest is that while people are assembling their preps, they also look at the skills and services that they will need afterwards, and see if they can't learn to do these things themselves. After all, if they need them, Here's a quick list of skills/trades that I think would be useful in a post-SHTF world. Food: Dry goods, sundries: Clothing: Materials: Manufacturing: Many of these skills and trades can be started as a hobby. I suggest that people think about these now, and find what they have a knack for and consider it "job security" for the future. - Bear in California « Letter Re: Thoughts on Shedding Bad Habits, and Developing Good Ones |Main| Note from JWR: » Tuesday September 8 2009Preparing for Uncertain Times--A Simple Guide to Getting Ready, by Mr. and Mrs. Joe PatriotIntroduction Imagine this situation: All of the media outlets have gone to commercial-free coverage. They are reporting that the Dow has dropped 2,000 points and trading has been suspended on Wall Street. The Chinese, along with other countries have transferred their reserves from the US Dollar. Oil futures climb $50 a barrel in hours. A national bank holiday shuts down the financial system on Main Street. Within 24 hours the grocery stores are cleared out of all food stocks. The gas pumps dry up in 12 hours. Trucks delivering goods are stuck at truck stops waiting on fuel that may not be available in days; 18-wheelers that have enough fuel to get back home are doing so, with the trailer left on the side of the road. Inner city areas are turning into war zones with looting and random acts of violence occurring between rival gangs. The Interstate System becomes a parking lot with the suburbanites trying to “get out of Dodge” (G.O.O.D.). With no more fuel supplies people become stranded and forced to flee on foot, with panicked people who are usually rational and moral, now acting immorally and irrationally; doing what it takes to get their family to perceived safety. Moral of the story is simple – given an emergency where you will be cut off from the comfort of the complex supply chain, utility grid, and police protection, could you take care of you and your family? Could you do it for a week, for a month, or even a year? I know this has more than likely unnerved you. Do not panic! Simple planning can help you get where you can take care of yourself and your family. We are going to try to guide you step-by-step in your path to peace of mind. Look at this plan as purchasing an insurance plan. You pay hundreds per month to insure yourself and your belongings, and investing in preparations may be the best policy you ever purchase. This will be covered in several areas:
It may be advised to keep your preparations confidential. Use discretion as much as possible when you make your acquisitions. Also note that there will be some sacrifice in making your targets. The items we are suggesting to buy in this document are costly, but remember what we said earlier about this being an insurance policy for the safety and security of your household. Try to think of others that may join you if they are displaced by a disaster. We will cover this in detail throughout this work. Money/Finances Most of the families in this country are trying to figure out how to make ends meet in these troubled times. The first thing you need to do is do a household budget with your family. You should put a total of what is coming in and the fixed bills that have to be paid out monthly. Write out your variable expenses for six months and see what you can cut to contribute to your monthly “insurance” expenses. There are many plans out there to help you with this. There are many ways to cut corners; you just have to be creative. 25-50% of the “insurance” fund should be used to pay down debt, with the remainder directed at your preparations. Use one month’s “insurance” allotment to purchase 90% pre-65 silver coins, which have intrinsic value with the silver content in them, or 1 oz. silver rounds from a recognized mint. Water Water is crucial for healthy living and survival. 80+% of the human body is water and must be replenished regularly. I human being can go on weeks without food, but without water, a person will perish in days. Each person will need three gallons of water per day to stay cleaned, fed, and hydrated. Invest in a high-quality gravity water filter. The British Berkefeld or Berkey Light (starting around $200) is recommended for its timeless design and filtration level. Rain collection and other sources of water must also be considered. Food In today’s just-in-time society, our logistics system is so finely tuned that the slightest hiccup in the system could cause massive trauma to the supply system. 3 days of delivery delays could interrupt the system for a month. How much food should be stored in reserve? Well, as much as space in your house and your pocket book will allow. 60 days will be your starting point. Remember to eat the elephant one bite at a time. Allocate an extra $30 per week to your grocery budget. Sit down with your family and make a list of what foods they enjoy to eat. Make a menu and look at the ingredients needed to make the dishes. Create a special storage area in a closet or basement for food storage. When you go to the grocery store by double the ingredients and put the excess in your storage closet. Keep an inventory and check off items when you meet your goal level for that particular ingredient. A starter list is included in this work. If you have the funds, try to stock your shelf with freeze-dried foods designed for long-term storage. These are items are pricey, but worth it on that rainy day. If you have a Mormon contact, you can go to the Provident Living centers to can food at a reduced cost compared to other commercial sources. Two Month Supply for Two People of Shelf Stable Grocery Store-Purchased Foods: Meats/Legumes (daily: 4 servings, 2 people/60 days: 480 servings) This is where people tend to get a little uneasy. Except for the sociopath and serial killer, humans instinctively do not want to harm their fellow man. However, in times where there are challenges, people will be likely divided into two categories:
You must be prepared to handle the second group, either though evasion, repulsion, or attack. The only way to do this effectively meet this task is to arm yourself with knowledge and of course – the hardware needed for the job. Firearms First and foremost, firearms need to be looked at as tools. They can hurt you if you are not safe! Just as a chainsaw, ladder, or tractor, like all dangerous tools, firearms must be handled with respect, with all the safety guidelines followed. Firearm selection can be complicated, so here are some easy guidelines in selecting a firearm. Calibers Caliber refers to what round the firearm is chambered to shoot. It is recommended that you purchase firearms listed in the primary category:
Secondary Calibers:
A lot of people who are new to firearms, or who have never thought of needing defensive firearms can get confused with all of the choices out there in the gun market. We will use the primary caliber list above as a starting point. If you own firearms, make a list of the caliber and type you have. Then inventory the ammo you have on hand for each firearm. Sell excess firearms that are not in the primary caliber list to create some extra funds to get what you really need in your defensive toolbox. Keep firearms chambered in Secondary Calibers as barter items or handouts to extra “help.”s For those on a budget and new to firearms, purchase a used 12 gauge pump shotgun and a used .357 Magnum revolver from an individual if possible. Guns have service lives measured in tens of thousands of rounds, so it makes sense to buy used guns, to save money. Also, by buying used guns from private parties, in most states you can avoid creating a "paper trail".) Find a friend or coworker that is knowledgeable in firearms, do your homework, and get these guns first. The 12 gauge has quite a recoil (“kicks”) with heavy loads, but can be used on any critter with wings or legs (2 or 4); make sure to get a model of shotgun that can have an extended magazine tube installed on it. As for handguns, the .357 revolver is a formidable self-defense pistol and can also shoot the [less powerful and slightly less expensive] .38 Special cartridge. Make sure you also have a holster and some speed loaders. Along with 100 rounds each of Buckshot and .357 hollow points, purchase low-cost clay load 12 gauge shells for the shotgun and bulk packs of .38 and to inexpensively learn how to use your firearms. Practice safe use and handling of all firearms, and make sure all chambers are clear or cylinders empty while stored in a secured safe or metal gun cabinet. Always make sure a firearm is clear before handling, and not in the physical grasp of untrained/young children. After you have your “starter” guns, make sure you have plenty of food for a couple months and water filtration, then start adding to your defensive tool box. Acquire firearms that are more suited for defending your perimeter and neighborhood. This can be pricey, but remember, you do not want to skimp on an item that might save your hide!
Equipment You must have adequate gear to carry your extra magazines and survival gear. A plastic grocery bag just won't fit the bill. This is called load-bearing equipment (LBE). Purchase gear that fits you and your environment. Some manufacturers of high-quality gear include: Tactical Tailor, Spec-Ops Brand, and Maxpedition 24 Hour Kit – this is the equipment that is your base equipment you will wear while doing security patrols. It should sustain you for up to 24 hours in the field.
Make sure first off the pack you select fits you well, is durable (no Chi-com knockoffs), Drab in color (florescent colors and reflective stripes are a no-no). Make sure the straps are of modern ergonomic design and you have a chest and belly band the fits you will over clothing. The better the fit of the bag, the less fatigue you will endure. Put your gear on and make sure it fits well. Go to a private location and test your gear out. Try to simulate being in the field. 99% of your activity in a disaster is gathering food and keeping yourself going, however you will need to periodically do a scouting patrol around your property to see what is happening, check on distant neighbors, etc. You need to make sure you can haul on your person every item you need to operate in the field for 72 hours. Wearing this kind of gear around is very fatiguing. If you are not in shape now, you will get in shape when the time comes. Make sure you can eliminate weight at every opportunity. Examples include carrying hotel size soap bars or slices of soap instead of a whole bar; a lightweight one-man tent instead of a three-man tent; sawing a toothbrush in half; etc. Anything to lighten the load, do it. If you made it through this work so far without throwing it in the trash or deleting it from your computers, thank you. I bet the wheels are turning in your head. Do not panic or get overwhelmed. The point of this work from the first letter is to give a broad overview of what steps you need to take to become a more self-sufficient American. I know that the cost of items freak you out. Think about it as spending your money while it is worth something. A simple breakdown in the monetary system could invalidate years of savings. Make it where you are comfortable in the future and do not become a casualty. The biggest issue faced in a disaster situation is comfort. However, if you have a comfortable place to sleep, food to eat, and water to drink you will thrive in hard times. Shelter A survivalist thinks they will hit the woods and live off the land. A good majority of these people will not make it due to exposure and lack of clean food and water. A thrivalist makes plan A to go to the well-stocked retreat (which may be home) and ride out the storm. The thrivalist can also live in the woods, but it is strictly plan B. The best place to remain is in what you know intimately – your home and surrounding area. Bug Out or Stay In? This will be a difficult choice for you to make. This is strictly the opinion of the author, but you should plan to avoid major cities during this time of crisis. In other words, if you live in an urban/suburban area become good friends with someone like mind and a tank of gas away or if you live in the country, plan to stay in and make room to have extra permanent guests if a catastrophic event happens to our nation. Whatever choice you make, you will need more people than just yourself. You will need a team of folks to sustain your Area of Operation (AO). This is where the purpose of this document ends. You have to use the gifts God gave us – intuition, critical thinking, gut feeling, etc. – to plan out exactly what you are going to do. Some suggested helpful links: Survivalblog.com « Influenza Pandemic Update: |Main| Letter Re: Lessons from a Brief, Opportunistic Burglary » Monday September 7 2009Letter Re: Some Travel and Bug Out Gear Recommendations
Sir, 1. A folding knife (not a one hand opening one … just a plain old Buck style knife). When asked (four or five times in a decade now) I explain that this is for cutting my food. 2. A pocket knife (Swiss Army knife 3. A fork and spoon (titanium) 4. A small (AAA battery size) LED flashlight 5. Several packets of sugar free hydration mix 6. Water purification tablets and a water purification straw 7. A compass (Marble's Brand Pin On) 8. A waterproof container with matches in them (while technically not allowed I have packed them for years with no problems) 9. A length of 550 cord 10. A map of the region that has been waterproofed after various routes out of the area have been marked on it. 11. A waterproofed copy of my passport front page, driver’s license, and birth certificate, and contact number. 12. A couple of Krugerrands I also have in the suitcase: 1. A small SW receiver (Grundig) 2. A first aid kit 3. A medical kit with various antibiotics, cold medicines, etc. in it. 4. A sewing kit (scissors come in handy and the thread and safety pins can be used for fishing) I also use a backpack to carry my laptop and business stuff in. I have in the past pulled the hard-drive from the laptop and left it sitting there when I have had to evacuate. The survival kit goes into the backpack in this case. Just because the backpack is a 5.11 RUSH24, it has not raised any eyebrows by customs officials. In addition to this I have always carried a packable raincoat or poncho and a cold weather jacket in my suitcase along with a good pair of hiking boots and a couple of pairs of wool hiking socks. Notice that other than the items in the water bottle, they are all items that one would use on a long business trip anyway. I make it a habit to never pack and carry anything with me that I would not be willing to dump if the need arose. I am sure this list will cause all sorts of heartache and discussion but I have used this kit or something very similar since I was a teenager (my father was posted all over the world) and unless we are talking about a complete breakdown of order it has enough in it that I can make it out of an area if need be. Second, we are using this weekend as a chance to go enjoy the great outdoors and practice our load out at the same time. As mentioned in the past we plan on using a camping trailer to get out of our area if we are forced to. So this weekend (as we have in the past) we are practicing our load out and go skills. The kids look at it as a game, and now while the world is not as bad as it could be, we can survive if we forget something basic – and have time to add it to the trailer. Third, when it comes to a bug-out many of us are tied to our computers and would want to take them with us. While I plan on taking one laptop with me if we ever have to leave our house (plus the K-12 educational CDs that we have for it) along with vital records, there is another way to keep your records with you. I have started to use products from a couple of different sites for many reasons – portability and security are chief among them. Portableapps.com allows you to load a basic set of applications onto a USB [memory] stick and use it in “stealth” mode on any computer with a USB port. This allows you to keep your records and a basic set of applications with you at all times (things like money management software and email are critical). I also frequent pendrivelinux.com and have a USB stick set up with a virtual linux image that allows me to do the same basic things as with the windows portable applications. I would urge you to set up several USB sticks like this so that you can get by with a single laptop/PC per family versus multiple ones. I also have the same sort of setup (using the windows briefcase function) for my critical business documents – while pulling the hard-drive does work this is a much cleaner solution. In this way if I need to walk out of an area, a small USB memory stick is a whole lot easier to carry than a laptop. Plus with the large number of companies that are placing tracking software on your laptops these days, being able to keep certain things private has a great deal of appeal. - Hugh D. « Influenza Pandemic Update: |Main| Letter Re: A Practical Use for Post-1982 US Zinc Pennies » Wednesday September 2 2009Letter Re: Advice on Camouflage Covers for LP/OPsJWR, JWR Replies: Semi-permanent OPs should be custom-built, to as closely match the local vegetation, as possible. Any store-bought camouflage is a compromise, at best. Ideally, you should grow local vegetation over the top of an excavated position, for the ultimate in undetectable camouflage. Nothing mimics nature like nature itself. (Anything else that you use won't look quite right, and of course it won't gradually change colors to match, seasonally.) See "Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse", for details on LP/OP construction. For truly temporary OPs 48 hours or less), I prefer using an oversized poncho of very rough-textured ghillie-type camo materials. Again, try to get materials that match the local vegetation colors as closely as possible. « Influenza Pandemic Update: |Main| Two Letters Re: Precious Metal and Base Metal Composition of Foreign Coins? » Monday August 31 2009Letter Re: Bug Out Contingency Planning[Introductory note from JWR: I normally send detailed letter replies only to their intended recipients, but in this case, I thought that this letter was a great example of terrain and obstacle analysis,a s well as "outside the box" planning, so I'm positing it for the entire SurvivalBlog readership to ponder. Do you have similar plans for off-road mobility, and contingency plans, folks?] « Letter Re: Battery-Powered Dirt Bikes |Main| Notes from JWR: » Wednesday August 26 2009Basic Survival Skills for Children, by M.L.Children play a part in many of our lives. Protecting them becomes an important issue in daily life as well as in an end of the world as you know it moment. However, what happens when adults can’t be there to protect them? What happens when they may need to protect us?
While many of the aforementioned tasks may sound obvious for all parents or care-givers, it always helps to remember your children can accomplish many tasks as long as they are given the chance to try. There are a variety of adult survival activities that you can tailor towards your children. Teach your child about your own family op-sec and basic safety when it comes to dealing with strangers. Above all, always remember to stress safety when teaching your children. I personally recommend the book The Boy's Book of Outdoor Survival If you can help your children and give them the knowledge to help themselves and others, even at a young age, you will enable them to be more responsible for themselves for the rest of their lives. As a parent, you are responsible for teaching your children. « Letter Re: Advice on Water Barrel Pumps |Main| Inventory Control for Retreat Logistics, by Rob C. » Tuesday August 25 2009Letter Re: Laser Protective Goggles
Sir: JWR Replies: The problem is that you need a separate filter for each ranges of wavelengths (measured in nanometers). By the time that you stack enough filters to stop all of the non-eye safe laser threats, you end up with something about as opaque as welder's goggles. I guess this explains why the Stormtroopers in Star Wars There may be some practical countermeasures. My best guess is that it would be Alexandrite lasers that would be used for intentional blinding, as I described in "Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse". Do a web search on "Dazer and Stingray." You will find some scary stuff. I discussed both eye safe and non-eye safe lasers in a series of articles that I wrote when I was a full time associate editor for Defense Electronics magazine, back in the late 1980s. These articles concerned the U.S. Army's now defunct Dazer (hand held) and Stingray (tactical vehicle and aircraft-mounted) laser weapon programs. Both had been intended to counter enemy EO sensors, but were unfortunately indiscriminate in damaging the Mark I human eyeball. (They used high power Alexandrite lasers, which have a wavelength that is not eye safe.) As I recall, the Dazer program was cancelled around 1992, and the larger Stingray system development was de-funded in 1996, right around the time of ratification of the UN Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons. (Main reference: Rawles, James W. "Directed Energy Weapons: Battlefield Beams." Defense Electronics, August 1989. v. 21, no. 8, p. 47-54.) If you buy a pair of goggles or sunglasses designed to protect against Alexandrite lasers (+/- 755 nanometers), they would also have some effectiveness against lasers in adjacent wavelengths. « Letter Re: Preparedness for Living on a Chesapeake Bay Island |Main| Note from JWR: » Friday August 21 2009Camouflage: The Art of the "Liar", by T.W.P.
Human Perception - from an artist’s point of view. Have you ever sat down and watched a movie? Sure you have. But did you ever stop to realize that everything you were watching was a lie? Most likely not, even though you do understand that intellectually. Most movies cash in on the concept of “suspension of disbelief” which means “you know that what you are watching is not real or true, but you are willing to pretend, accept that it is real or true, for sake of entertainment.” It is an implied contract between you, and the makers of that movie. The producers of that movie have an obligation to you - and that obligation is to make it “look” so real, make is so convincing - that you are able to believe it when you see it. A “Special Effect” that you noticed and commented on, saying “Wow that was a great effect, it really looked real” is actually a badly executed effect. If you recognized it as an effect, it was not a successful effect – because you recognized it – it drew attention to itself. A real special effects artist covers his tracks so well, that you believe that what you saw was real, and do not question it or recognize it as an effect – you accept it at face value – and that is what camouflage is really all about – tricking your opponent into accepting what he sees at face value, and not even thinking to question it. For the past 28 years, I have been employed as a professional sculptor/artist in the entertainment industry. What that means is that for those years, I have been paid to lie to you. That statement is not meant to give offense. It is meant to draw your attention to a point that I think could save your life. Camouflage is, quite simply the skill of lying. Think about it. You goal, your desire is to create an illusion, a deception, a trick of the eye with such skill that your enemy does not see you, or realize that either “you” or “it” is actually there at all. Your enemy thinks it is just a rock, a bush, and clump of dirt, - he has no idea that there is something there at all. He is at ease, relaxed; he feels safe and does not see any booty to snap up for himself, or any enemy to threaten him, because he sees nothing but the environment around him. That is your goal – right? So, to achieve that goal, you need to become a great liar! You have all seen paintings, photographs, “art” of many kinds. But the things you see are not what your mind tells you they are. Thus, your mind plays tricks on you, it “interprets” or “translates” the images it receives by way of your eye, into concepts; and then you react or respond to those perceived concepts. But the concepts your mind’s eye creates by way of its interpretation of visual stimuli, may not be accurate with respect to the objective environment, as any one of a million playfully entertaining optical illusions can clearly demonstrate. Your mind can be easily tricked into believing something that is not real or true. In general, there are very few straight lines or repeated patterns in nature. Exceptions to the rule do exist, in such things as sedimentary strata that is uninterrupted by geological events beyond its original “manufacture”, or the magnificent rhythm of sea shells, and a few other things; but as a rule, regularity and repetition, rhythm and pattern, is rather hard to find out in the bush. However, in contrast to the “randomness of nature” the human mind, tends to seek out regularity and pattern, rhythm and harmony. (Bear in mind that the eye does not “see” anything. It is merely an organic structure designed to collect and receive light from the outside world, and transfer the image to the mind for interpretation. It is the human brain that actually “sees” what is going on out there, by way of interpreting the information given to it by the eye.) Our modern definition of beauty to a very large degree stems from this perception of “visual harmony” and we seek out balance and summitry as a means to define beauty in others. In other words, the left and right eye are “balanced” with respect to each other. The nose is centered on the face, and if a sentient line or center line were drawn through the middle of it, both half’s of the nose would be in balance. In the male, if this balance and cemetery is hard and “chiseled” he is considered handsome or good looking. In the female, if this harmony of features or balance is soft and delicate, she is considered beautiful. There are occasions when a “crooked smile” can be considered quite attractive – but the very reason it is considered attractive, is because we recognize that it is “crocked” as compared and contrasted to our traditional interpretation of beauty, which seeks out that straight, balanced harmony radiating from a center line, and it becomes that consciously recognized exception to the rule that we find attractive. Because we tend to seek out rhythm and balance, we automatically create a repetition or pattern in our physical actions. But then this very pattern, this rhythm is precisely what our eye seeks out and recognizes. So, to truly disappear into your environment… Rule # 1 = never repeat your pattern or your placement of color or item. Become deliberately random. Consciously pay attention to your natural tendency to become rhythmic and repetitious, and willfully violate that natural tendency by placing things at deliberately irregular intervals. Test yourself on this. Take a sea sponge and dip it in paint, and then casually dabble that paint loaded sponge on a wall or plywood board. Then step back and look at your work. Odds are, you will see a rhythm, an equally spaced, even and regular pattern of sponge pats on the wall. In fact, you could almost put a tape measure to each sponge splotch, and they would all be within a ¼ of one another. This is exactly what you want to take note of – and avoid when seeking to camouflage yourself or your stash! If you see a pattern, so will your enemy. Remember – rhythm and regularity = presence of man – weather your opponent consciously recognizes this fact, or not, he will “perceive it” and gravitate towards this regularity. “Composition” is something you will hear artists speak about frequently. This refers to the placement of colors and images within the frame of the work. (And the negative space – the “empty” space around objects, between objects, within objects – is also an element of the art work – and something you need to pay attention to). This concept of composition is a format artists use to guide the viewers eye along a specific path to enhance interest and visual pleasure. (the eye can be directed along a specific and predetermined path – guided by the skillful artist to “look here, not there” - hint, hint). But again, with physical objects, (in the case of a painting, for example, a pile of rocks) even numbers of elements represent regularity and pattern, and regularity and pattern means man, not nature. Rule #2 = odd numbers work better than even numbers. Place colors or elements in groups of 3, 5, 7, et cetera. Starbucks, like every retail food outlet, offers three sizes of drink cup. They don’t call it small, medium and large, they rename it so it sounds fancy and costs more - Tall, Vente, and Grande, but it is still small, medium and large drink cup size no matter how you slice things up. But if you stop to think about it, a small one, a large one, and one that is exactly in the middle of those two - - is regular, predictable, rhythmic and repetitious. It is contrived. It is according to the rules of pattern and harmony. What that means is – to camouflage yourself and your stash, you need to be aware of this, and violate that thinking. In composition, (placement of items and colors within your framework) arrangements that are odd numbered work better. Arrangements like large, large, small - or small, small, medium. Remember – odd numbers (3,5,7), and odd arrangements (L,L,s). Rule #3 = selection of object sizes and placement relationships with one another, should be as random and irregular as the arrangement of item groups within your overall framework. You have all seen Leonardo De Vinci’s masterpiece “The Last Supper” But I invite you to revisit that work with a new understanding. Notice, as you view it, that each of the Apostles are in groups of three, (odd number) and that each group is slightly separated from the other groups. Notice also that the eyes of all Apostles (save Judas) are facing towards Christ. Notice also that the building in which they sit, is rendered in what is called a single point perspective, with a single vanishing point – all things converge on that vanishing point, and Christ is at the center of it. In other words, everything in that picture, from foreground to background to the stitching on the tablecloth - commands, forces, directs our eye to our Lord, Jesus Christ. You have no choice but to look upon Him. Da Vinci skillfully directed you to look where he wanted you to look, and you naturally obey. Bearing this in mind, you can also misdirect your adversary by employing branches, sticks, or a carefully placed “line” of items, all pointing where you want him to look. See what you want him to see. You can actually direct his path, even make him literally walk right where you want him to walk, by placing well crafted “arrows” that point along your chosen path (providing you do do not make it obvious - - another rule of art is that often - less is more, so don’t forget the first three rules). Rule #4 = item arrangements can direct the eye along a predetermined path. Knowing this, gives you the power to control that path and direct your adversaries attention to a point you chose. As a sculptor, on occasion I will accidentally chip off a chunk of material that results in what we call “the happy accident.” It usually happens because I am working quickly. While this break in material was not designed, expected or intended, nevertheless it often yields fantastic results, and is incorporated into the work, if at all possible. However, being human, we tend to seek order and harmony – we desire to have control – and we also tend to work that way. We tend to work meticulously and deliberately, with care and consideration towards our goal. But again, this is not how nature works. Haphazard and disorganized is natural – and the best way to achieve this “look” is not to be too careful, too controlled or to focused on what you are doing. Rule #5 = Deliberately work with haste and speed (until you master the first 3 rules) to allow for the haphazard ‘happy accident’ that more accurately reflects a natural environment. Force yourself to do it fast until you get good at it, then you will do it fast because you are good at it. Those professionals who make their craft look easy are those who have done it so many times, that they don’t have to stop and think about it anymore. This deliberate under pressure, with speed technique is the first step in teaching a student to be a sculptor – because his natural tendency is to start detailing from one end to the other, rather than establish the overall “anatomy” first. Most people see only the surface, the final detail and finish, and neglect to recognize the more important underlying structure – bones, muscle, balance, etc. The foundation upon which your details are built - is more important than the details themselves. You “see” the frosting on the cake – the surface detail - sure, but don’t forget the frosting is on the cake. Another trick of the trade is a bit more tactical, and goes hand in hand with rule #4. Diversion and distraction. In my profession, we often employ a technique called “the purple flower.” Art directors, having already designed and blueprinted or sketched the look of the movie on paper are - technically speaking, no longer needed on the payroll. They design it, send it to me and I build it, according to design. Simple. However, would you want to walk away from a $5,000 per week paycheck? So, what would you need to do in order to justify your continued employment? Make changes! Well, we know they are going to make changes. So – we give them something to change. We deliberately introduce into the project, something wrong, something noticeably out of whack. Naturally, he will see this, and demand we “fix this immediately,” to which we promptly reply “yes sir!” He has corrected our mistake, justified himself on the payroll, and is happy, and yet, he has not messed up all our work, because we directed and controlled his “change” by giving him something to change. (Please don’t let the cat out of the bag by telling others about this – especially if you are under a chain of command. The C.O. cannot find out what you are doing or the game is up.) In other words, your adversary is looking for something – anything that will tip him off as to your presence. Give him what he wants. But under your control, not his. Rule #6 = Now that you know some of the rules, (and you do need to master them first. Foundation, remember?) learn when to throw the rules out and go right back to doing what you should not do. Remember, the odds are, your adversary does not know the rules to art, or how to control human behavior through visual stimuli – so take advantage of his ignorance - - today’s marketing and advertising agencies do this to you every day of your life. Camouflage patterns on military uniforms have, for decades been defensive in nature. Their goal was (obviously) to break up the human form or silhouette, using colors found in nature and irregular patters. Their intent was to make the wearer “fade away” – “disappear into the surrounding foliage” or simply put - “hide.” Today’s digital camouflage pattern is quite the opposite. It is a deliberately ‘in your face’ offensive pattern (psychologically speaking). If you look closely, it is composed of colored squares – which as we all know are shapes that are exactly equal on all four sides – i.e. regular, mathematical, and thus, easily discernable in a non-mathematical natural setting (or so one would think). However, this new pattern is designed around the manner in which human perception functions and operates. The designers understand how the human eye perceives color, shape and line, and how the human mind translates the visual stimuli brought to it through the eye to formulate perceptions and concepts. Thus, digital camouflage assaults your brain’s natural perceptive methodology – which makes it more effective than the traditionally defensive camo pattern. (The colors are more subtle too – prone to emulate the tones on a bright sunlit day). What happens is that your mind blends, interprets, or translates those “tiny little squares” into fuzzy random, totally innocuous natural shapes. There is no “edge” to separate “this” shape from “that” shape and thus identify it as a printed pattern – so it all blends together into something else. Next time you see the digital pattern, try squinting your eyes as you look at it, and you will see how it effects you. You fill in the blanks. You “participate” (albeit, without your conscious knowledge) in the camouflage of the digital patterns now worn by our military. Thus, as exemplified by Edgar Allen Poe, and Sherlock Holmes – on occasion, the best possible disguise is right in front of your eyes. Naked. Exposed. Right there – which is the last place anyone would think to look. A cop, searching for an escaped convict, probably would not think to search the police station’s basement. Remember, your opponent is expecting you to try and hide it. Rule #7 = Sometimes, right out in the open, in plain sight is the best possible place to “hide” it, simply because they are expecting you to hide it – looking for where you hid it, and not expecting, or looking for the obvious. (This tactic can also serve well as “bait for the trap”). There are a number of additional ‘rules of art’ but the best teacher is observation and practice. Wonder around in nature and really stop and “look” at it. Most beginners, if I instructed them to sculpt a rock, would create something that more closely resembles a potato than a rock. This is not because they are incompetent (per se) – so much as because they “think” they know what a rock looks like, and as a result, have never actually stopped and looked at a rock. They assume they know what they know they don’t know – to their determent. So, go out and really look at your environment – study it. Take notes as to what you see – and why it is the way it is. Take a few minutes to read a book or two on art and learn what defines it, what categorizes “good” from “bad” art. It will help, not to mention expanding your horizons and affording you a new found “level of cultural enlightenment and appreciation.” Note: Considering what I just said, I have to add that the Accredited Fine Arts Academia today - is a socialist/elitist, self glorifying pompous joke. I know many people with degrees in art – but I have never met one on the job site. “Those who can – do. Those who cannot - go back to school and teach.” Be that as it may – learning something about art is not going to hurt you. In fact, it may grant you a little more insight as to how “you” function in your environment. In the meantime, don’t necessarily buy a bunch of expensive ghillie suits and nets and stuff at Cabela’s (however ‘cool’ they might be). More often than not, your best bet is to use whatever is there, within the environment you are trying to hide in. You want to blend into “it” – so use “it.” Procedure: So, say that you want to hide your truck or your pile of MREs in such a way that you can retrieve them quickly and easily, whatever. How do you go about it? For first time ‘artists,’ hesitation, fear of a mistake, self consciousness and insecurity must be overcome. And anyone trying something new, for the very first time, is, naturally, going to be self conscious and hesitant--afraid of messing it up. However, if you are afraid of making a mistake – you will. And, there is nothing that cannot be changed, amended, altered or adjusted to correct a ‘mistake.’ There is no such thing as a mistake (unless you are on a deadline and getting paid). Further, very often, those perceived mistakes actually further your goals –so allow for them. However, to break through that barrier of self hesitation and insecurity – force yourself to work fast. Reflect on your goals (camouflage) - – then reflect on the general rules of art - - then stop thinking and attack what you are doing with boldness and power, confidence and positive self-assurance. Throw yourself at it whole heartedly. Loosen up – relax. “Play” at it. Then, when some progress has been made, pause and take a step back. Review. Ask yourself:
The answers to these questions will give you information, and it is the information you receive from your work that will dictate your next action. (It sounds a bit “Zen” but the only way I can describe this is to “let the work speak to you – and learn how to listen to it.”) Then – attack it again, boldly, powerfully and quickly. But, know when to stop fussing with it and put the tool down. Know when to say ‘when', and walk away – because it is all too easy to “overwork” something, and destroy the point to your efforts. Very often, less work yields a more effective result – as we have pointed out, less “attention to detail” commands and requires the viewer to “participate” in the work – to fill in the blanks himself – and that is what will trick him into thinking it is simply a bush or a pile of rocks – so learn how to use your opponents own mind against him! Proviso: If you are doing this in the safety and comfort of your back yard - to practice and learn the some of the skills – you may find you are having some fun. Do not let your spouse figure this out, or they will take it away from you and replace it with a “honey do” list. ‘God’s speed’ to one and all. - T.W.P. JWR Adds: Keep in mind the classic military observation cues when you are designing camouflage:
Take a look at this series of photos of Swiss Army bunkers, and then this montage, and answer this: what did they do right, and what did they do wrong? Do you see the straight lines? Now take a look at this series of photos. (If you can't mimic nature, then mimic man! Note that the "windows" are all just painted on the reinforced concrete.) Ach! Those same clever SwitzerDudes that invented the Swiss Army Knife. You have to admire them. OBTW, a stack of cordwood can hide a lot of things, including a bunker entrance. My favorite hidden bunker door is in the second photo on this page. (It takes a while to spot the door hinges.) For additional reading, I recommend these two books: The War Magician « Three Letters Re: Acquiring Pre-1965 Silver Coinage |Main| Note from JWR: » Wednesday August 12 2009Preparedness Beginnings, by "Two Dogs"I am a retired Marine Corps officer and Naval Aviator (jets and helicopters), commercial airplane and helicopter pilot, and most recently, an aircraft operations manager for a Federal agency. I graduated from numerous military schools, including the U.S. Army Airborne (“jump”) School, U.S. Navy Divers School, Army helicopter, and Navy advanced jet schools. In addition, I have attended military “survival” courses whose primary focus was generally short-term survival off the land, escape from capture, and recovery from remote areas. Like most Marine officers, I attended The Basic School, an 8-month school (only five during the Vietnam era – my case), which is still designed to produce a second lieutenant who is trained and motivated to lead a 35-40 man platoon of Marines in combat. This course covers everything from field sanitation to squad and platoon tactics, artillery and other ordnance delivery, communications, reconnaissance, intelligence, firearms training, and much more. Later, I attended the Marine Amphibious Warfare School and the Command and Staff College, both follow-on schools and centered upon the academic study of tactics and strategy as they applied to the missions of the Marine Corps. I flew helicopters offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and across the U.S. I found out first hand how thoroughly corrupted is the federal bureaucracy and the government, in general. Not a pleasant experience. I’d rather have been flying. I have bachelor's and master's degrees. As a result, my wife of forty years and I seem to have been moving endlessly from place-to-place. Nevertheless, I have tried in each place to do what I could to maintain a level of self-sufficiency for my family that varied greatly with locations and personal finances. My intention here is to try to share some of the less-than-perfect ways that I have tried to accomplish that end. Only in the last few years, primarily as a result of the political and fiscal situation in the U.S., have I begun reading some of the huge amounts of literature about how one can prepare for serious long-term off-the-grid survival. I have found that the preparation required to be ready for that contingency seems to be endless. I do not want to talk about all of those preparations. Others have done so very well, and besides, I’m not there, yet. What I would like to do is to talk to those, perhaps like me, who are not true survivalists in the commonly referred-to sense, but who are genuinely concerned about the future of this country, and might desire, like me, to begin to prepare. Perhaps my elementary and simplistic efforts might be of help to someone else who is beginning to think about the subject of preparedness. There are many scenarios that might require this, but the two that I am thinking most about are economic collapse and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. I’m building small Faraday boxes, but not doing much else for EMP. My thinking on begins with my own estimation of the basic problems: shelter, water, food, fuel, and security. I view these as the most critical needs, whether living in a tent or other outdoor shelter or here in our rural home in West Virginia. Here I have and often take for granted what I have -- shelter, well water, a small stream, a pond, a rain barrel; canned, dried, frozen, and freeze-dried foods; fuel for the generator and portable stoves, kerosene heater and lanterns; factory-made and reloaded ammunition for any one of several firearms. Edible plant books. Gardening books. Encyclopedia of Country Living-type books. Reloading books. Hunting books. Tracking books. A few novels devoted to the “what ifs” of the future, including Jim Rawles' excellent "Patriots:
A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse" Those are the basic things about which I think. I have been thinking about them for quite a while, in fact, longer than I even realized. Perhaps I’ve been thinking about them ever since I was a young lad. For example, my very first “survival book” was the Boy Scout Field Book, the original of which I still have (circa late-1950s edition). It is still a great reference if one is looking for an all-in-one manual for starting fires, making simple shelters, recognizing game tracks, tying knots, and much more. I note that it is still available on Amazon.com. (It’s probably been scrubbed to favor the politically correct, but don’t know [JWR Adds: Yes, I can confirm that unfortunately it has been made politically correct--with the traditional woodcraft skills showing any injury to innocent and defenseless trees duly expunged. So I advise searching for pre-1970 editions!] ) One does not necessarily need the SAS
Survival Handbook I think that my first education in “survival” came at about fourteen. That’s when I first shot a .30-06, an old [Model 19]03 Springfield. It pretty much rattled my cage. Mostly, my older brother and I used to track and shoot small animals in the deep woods of Missouri as youngsters. We were “issued” ten rounds of .22 LR ammo by our father, a retired USAF pilot, to be used in a bolt action, single shot, .22 rifle with open sights. One would be surprised what that meager handful of loose ammunition could do for one’s choice of shots, one’s ability to be patient in waiting for the shot, and for one’s great satisfaction at having brought home six or eight squirrels for the cooking pot, having used just those ten rounds – and sometimes, but not often, less. My point is that the knowledge of firearms is, in my view, basic to the notion of preparedness and in surviving in the wild. And it need not be exotic or overly complicated in nature. One can surely attend modern schools that will teach one to double-tap a cardboard target or silhouette at seven yards with a semi-auto pistol, as well as basic and advanced tactical rifle courses, but very basic survival skill with a rifle can be had without much cost if one is committed to learning the skill and if one disciplines oneself. Start with only one round, and work up from there. As Col. Jeff Cooper used to say, “Only hits count.” In a purely off-the-grid survival scenario, I can envision that .22 LR rounds would be very precious, indeed. Consequently, and even though I own handguns and rifles that will shoot .45 ACP, .44 Magnum/.44 Special, .357 Magnum/.38 Special, .380 ACP, .223, .25-06, .270, 7mm-08, .308, .7.62x39, .30-30, .30-06, and .45-70/.457 WWG Magnum (a wildcat), I shoot a .22 rifle and pistol more than all of the others, combined, and normally at least twice a week. And I’m hoarding them, as well as shooting them. I have the capability to reload all the calibers (except .22 LR/Magnum, of course) above, as well as shotgun ammo in 12 and 20 gauge. I wasn’t really thinking of “survival” when deciding to do this about twenty years ago, but was interested only in having the capability to shoot more, and to do it more cheaply. Yet it appears that much of that ammo could be used for barter. I had never even considered this until reading some of the recent “survival novels.” My apologies. I’ve wandered into the weeds here, as I could do forever on my favorite subject. Suffice it to say that whatever firearm one chooses – and make no mistake, one is necessary in my opinion -- there are all kinds of reasons to choose one over the other, depending on the situation and the person. One must endeavor to shoot it well. Owning a firearm is of almost no consequence, at all, unless it is properly employed. Personally, I prefer a M1911 .45 ACP pistol and a 7.62 M1A SOCOM, while my wife is comfortable with the milder .38 [S&W] revolver and 20 gauge. pump shotgun. I won’t even begin to get into the debate over .223 vs .308 and 9mm vs. .45 ACP. Suffice it to say that in Vietnam I had the opportunity to see the effects of all of these, and I chose for my own security the .308 and .45 ACP. Having got my favorite subject out of the way, I’ll talk about one that is likely even more important. Water. It is amazing how complicated this can be, and how many choices one has to solve this problem. I have not yet solved it. I have put up a rain barrel, and plan to get a couple more. It’s amazing how rapidly a 55 gallon barrel will fill in even a moderate thunderstorm. I got mine from Aaron’s Rain Barrels. http://www.ne-design.net/. I’ve camo-painted the first one to make it recede into the bushes that surround it. We have a very shallow stream down the hill that I need to dam so that it keeps only about a foot-or-two deep pool for gathering some water. It flows into a large pond, of which we own half (The owner of neighboring property owns the other half.). But that’s over a hundred-yard trek downhill with empty buckets, and the same distance uphill with full ones. Now, while that is okay for a backup, in my thinking, because I’m going on 63 years, I prefer to have something closer. So my next “big” purchase will be a Simple Pump that allows one to drop a pump and pipe though one’s existing well casing down to below water level and extract water by means of a hand pump or DC motor attached to a battery which, in turn, will connect to a solar panel. This is much, much cheaper than a Solar Jack. At $1,200 for the hand pump capability (I’ll add on the DC and solar later), it’s a bargain, for me. See: http://www.survivalunlimited.com/deepwellpump.htm. I’ve also started collecting clear plastic soda bottles for use in Solar Disinfection (SODIS), see; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection. I’ve set up a rack for putting out the bottles in a sunny place. Again, that’s a backup, but I’ll use it. I have bought three different water filtering devices, the best of which is the Swiss-made, all-stainless Katadyn Pocket Microfilter. It works wonders in that shallow stream and pond down the hill.. [JWR Adds: The same Katadyn filter model is available from several SurvivalBlog advertisers. They deserve your patronage first, folks!] With the exception of the Simple Pump, these solutions are relatively cheap and effective, if not producers of great volume. So far, they are what I’ve come up with. I won’t go much into the food problem. It isn’t quite as complicated as the water problem. I’ve either got to have it [stored], grow it, or kill it. I’ve started storing all kinds of Mountain House freeze dried #10 cans (with expiration date dates in 2034), two-serving meals from Mountain House (expiration dates circa 2016), and numerous grocery store-type canned foods (expiration a couple years), in addition to dried beans, rice, Bisquick (sealed in plastic bags with desiccant inside), salt, sugar (Domino, which are sold in one-pound plastic tubs), olives, peanuts, wheat, etc. Basically hit-or-miss, so far. I need to get this “food problem” organized and do it right. But it’s a start. I think we’ve got only about a 60-day supply now, for two. I’ve got two Coleman two-burner stoves. One is a butane stove, and the other a dual fuel (white gas or unleaded gas), as well as several small backpacking stoves, the best of which is a MSR Whisperlite International Concerning backpacking stuff, I can recommend a book that I read back then called The Complete Walker, by Colin Fletcher. I haven’t read it in at least a decade, but its import is such that I remember much of it. He emphasizes simplicity in gear. That is to say, don’t pack a tent if you can get by with a tent fly – which you cannot in cold weather. I’ve still got my old three-season tent, but am saving up for a four-season. And he emphasizes: don’t worry about pounds – worry about ounces. That is to say, if one is packing tea bags, remove the labels from the bags. Ounces. Remove all packaging material unless it is absolutely necessary (usually never). Don’t carry a “mess kit,” nor a knife, fork and spoon set. A spoon will do (I’ve done it) along with a pocket knife. Now I have so many knives of so many types that I can’t remember them. Personally, I’d go for a multi-tool. But it’s heavy. I never used to carry a weapon while backpacking. Of course, it was (and is) illegal in Hawaii, but I think one would be remiss in not doing so today. There was so much good advice in that book that helped me in the USMC, if nothing more than when packing my helicopter before a mission, or a car, trailer, or truck to move across the country. “Think ounces, not pounds.” I always think about Mr. Fletcher’s advice when I pack. Anyway, I think I’ve got the camping stove angle covered in spades. That is, until the fuel runs out. Same goes for kerosene heater and lanterns (5). My plan is to pull out our pellet stove and replace it with a free-standing wood stove. Pellets are nice, but they must be bought, and the price is getting exorbitant, according to my pocket book. They likely will be non-existent in a crunch. I connected a 12,000 Watt/50amp gasoline generator when we moved into this house nine years ago, as I have with every house in which we’ve lived for the last two decades. I’ve got it wired through a transfer box to the circuit-breaker panel, a job that I did myself. It works, and it’s safe. The main reasons for having this were to run the 220V[olt AC] well water pump and to run the refrigerator and our free-standing freezer during power outages. But I’ve got it wired, anyway, to nearly every circuit in the house, except the other 220V appliances – water heater and heat pump. It is somewhat selectable. That is to say that I can choose which circuits I want to power by engaging or disengaging the switches on the transfer box. The problem is that it uses gasoline. So in a long-term outage it would soon become useless. I’ve had the propane gas company come out to estimate what it would cost to get a dedicated 100 gal propane tank for the generator. It would be about $500, but then, in addition to the 50+ gallons of gasoline, butane tanks, and white gas that I keep stored in a separate outbuilding, it would make a great explosion when hit with a tracer round. Which brings me to the subject of security. We live in a split-level home on about ten acres of forest. The property is surrounded by other similar-sized properties of seemingly like-minded individuals. I gleamed this because everyone out here shoots. The sweet sound of gunfire can be heard at times in a full circle. West Virginia, at least, has still got its priorities straight in this regard. But I digress. This is a frame house with half of it below ground in front, but framed in back, which faces the forest. The forest, itself, is a maze of downed pine trees blown over by the wind, interspersed with small saplings, vines and low brush. Not a likely avenue of approach for anyone but the most determined. For those who are determined, the downed trees would make excellent cover and concealment. So I have a security problem to solve there, as well as at the front. I’ve started buying rolls of barbed wire and baling wire. Unfortunately, I do not have access to dynamite, which we used to be able to buy in a hardware store in the 1960s. We used it back then to blow stumps while clearing the land for our house. I am thinking of buying a bunch of used railroad ties to build cover in the back; I’ve thought also of bricks and sandbags. Problem is we’re reaching the point in all of this where the house would begin to look like a fortress, of sorts, to all but the most ignorant observers. So there’s a line here concerning security versus “normalcy” that I must cross sooner or later. Inasmuch as my wife is a few years older than I and is on constant medications, I’m afraid that finding a retreat (if we could even afford one) would be out of the question, as access to doctors, hospital and pharmacy are a necessity. Nevertheless I’ve got the bags packed and gear ready to throw into the pickup (Toyota 4x4 – like to have one of those older model American trucks, but I think they are getting rare, at least around here. And what there are will likely go to the Cash for Clunkers Program….grumble, grumble. What will they think of next?). So it looks to me as if we are here for the duration of the crisis, or sooner, if they try to take the guns from my cold, dead hands. Speaking of, I still have to build a cache or two for guns and ammo and a few other necessities. And since I’ve more-or-less made that decision (here for the duration), I’ve thought of organizing the apparently gun-loving neighbors. I’ve begun to buy walkie-talkies, if not field phones and commo wire. I’ve got solar panels and several batteries (need to get a mega deep cell or two, however) to run the small battery chargers and the CB radio. My shortwave is up and running. I will have to wait to talk to the neighbors, whom I rarely see, much less know. I can just imagine the words that would come out of their mouths if I were to mention to them the notion of forming a security “company” and establishing a perimeter. “That old retired Marine down the road is nuts!” So that’s what I’ve got to say. I do hope it at least stimulates some thought for those who are starting out trying to prepare, as I am. All of this shows me that one “problem” in this “survival” business leads to several more, and they in turn lead to even more problems. Lots to do. So I’m glad I’m retired. I’ve got time to think about it. If I were rich, I could do a lot more and likely in a far away place, but as it is, we do with what we have. I have to use the lessons taught to every Marine: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome. Long Live America. Keep the Faith. - “Two Dogs”, Col. USMCR (ret.) in West Virginia « Economics and Investing: |Main| A Prepper Husband and a Stubborn Wife, by JRM » Tuesday August 4 2009Three Letters Re: Here Comes Winter!
Hello JWR, If your activities are mostly sedentary, I think the cotton might work alright, as it is breathable, and you're not perspiring much. However, if you are engaged in a physical activity, such as patrolling, doing chores, etc, you will need to both shed outer layers, and have a good hydrophobic fabric to pass the moisture created by perspiration. My layering system, which I use for cross country skiing and winter camping, includes a base layer of a polypropylene set of long underwear, a fleece jacket or sweatshirt, a synthetic fill jacket, and a lightweight Gore-tex shell. For pants I have fleece pants over a light-weight Gore-tex shell. The advantage to this system is that I can shed layers as needed. When cross country skiing I regularly use only the long underwear and the shell, and quickly add the fleece when I stop. In a system with high exertion or cardiovascular activity, cotton will soak quickly, and the fabric loses its insulation capabilities. In these cases, adding more layers may not be beneficial, as the water trapped in the cotton fabric is aiding the heat transfer from your body to the outside air. So, that in mind, wisely choose your winter gear, and be sure to choose application appropriate things. I worked at a camping gear store for several years, and can say that your local camping stores are probably a wealth of knowledge in suitable outdoor gear. Go, ask questions, and learn what the products do. From there, you have the knowledge to choose what gear you may need. Whether it be consumer intent winter gear, or paramilitary intent gear, you'll have the knowledge of what materials and systems to look for. In my case, my winter gear has all remained the same, but I invested in a winter camouflage pattern Gore-tex shell to keep my consumer-intent layering system dry. - DJ in Michigan
JWR - I appreciate the work you do each day in bringing us all to a higher level of knowledge through your blog. It is great stuff. So thank you!I am writing because I feel the need to add more to, and somewhat rebut, a posting on some advice provided by Chris G. on the Monday August 3 posting regarding winter clothing. Good things mentioned in the posting: 1. You definitely want to wear multiple layers, no question 2. Your layers should include insulating layers beneath, with water and wind proof outer layers. However, I find the recommendation for the under layers being "cotton" to be a very dangerous suggestion. Why you ask? Here are my thoughts on the matter… I would first start with the question of "What is my intended activity in said winter weather?" Reasoning: Cotton may be fine if in your intended winter activity you have no possibility of getting wet. Getting wet? Well, I have a waterproof outer layer you say - so I'm safe. Well, what if you were to fall through some ice, or get some snow shoved down/up your snowsuit after taking a spill on your snowmobile? Even if those are remote possibilities for you, the more important question is if your activity will involve anything that may cause you to perspire. Cotton may be fine if you are doing non-active work, play, or travel (non-cardio types of activities) and can thus stay dry and warm. Cotton is indeed very comfortable, no doubt. But please also think about your own perspiration. Has anyone heard the phrase "Cotton Kills [in the cold]"? Hopefully so… If you think you may be doing anything active, where you may sweat, think again about your under layers and if you want to be wearing cotton. The number one problem with cotton includes the fact that when it gets wet, it can and will stay wet for a very long time. Due to the fiber makeup of cotton threads themselves, cotton will absorb water, causing the fabric to quickly lose its ability to insulate when wet. Think about your sweat, your own perspiration - it is a hidden danger that some do not consider. Moisture against your body will sap body heat from you. You want to avoid any possibility of such as it may lead to hypothermia. Cotton also gets very heavy when wet. Therefore, it is my recommendation that under layers should be synthetic or wool, with my preference being synthetic. Both of these materials will maintain their insulating qualities when wet - with synthetic being the one that is usually easier to "wring out" if ever wet, and wool being the fabric that will absorb some moisture. As synthetics never absorb the moisture, you avoid it becoming heavy with water. Some synthetic insulation such as polyester fleece is very comfortable and lightweight (Try Patagonia's Capilene Synthetics such as polar fleece also have a great warmth to weight ratio, wet or dry, which can also allow you to carry more clothing in your pack from a weight perspective as you bug out of town. Some may be a little bulky - but they are lightweight bulk. In the end - wouldn't you just rather be prepared with synthetic winter clothing at all times? to be ready for any and all situations, active or non-active, and not risk being caught dead in cotton clothing? Just a few thoughts from another Idaho outdoorsman/recreationalist. Keep up the great work JWR! - Kind regards, - D.R. « Influenza Pandemic Update: |Main| Letter Re: Increasing Security for an 1870s House » Monday August 3 2009Two Letters Re: Here Comes Winter!
Dear JWR, Keeping warm in the cold is all about layering underneath and waterproof on the outside. I prefer cotton clothes to the newer athletic-type wicking clothes which don’t seem to hold the heat as well. Start with cotton long underwear which is snug but not too tight. A second pair of long underwear is all you should need in the coldest (sub-zero) weather. On your upper body, add 1-2 cotton t-shirts over the 1-2 pair of long underwear to keep your trunk warm and to leave your arms free to move. I sometimes throw a loose cotton sweatshirt over all of this if it’s really cold. There are lots of parkas on the market. With all the layering underneath, just make sure the one you pick is water-proof (not water-repellant), or has a waterproof lining inside. Also make sure it is oversized to allow room for the layers underneath. On my legs, I wear a quality pair of cotton jeans over the long underwear, and a quilt-lined bib over the jeans. I’ve taken the advice of guys who work in the outdoors in the winter (one is my best friend who is a union painter in Chicago), and buy Carhartt clothes. I agree with outdoor workers that Carhartt clothes are the best work quality around. The Carhartt bibs are preferable to one-piece snow suits because they don’t restrict your upper body movements while at the same time they are warm, water-repellant, and cut any drafts that can get under your coat. Caution: do not put these bibs in the dryer as they can shrink! These are not totally waterproof, so I sometimes add a pair of ordinary waterproof rain pants on the outside (which also helps cut the wind). Buy waterproof, insulated, and steel-toed boots. If you walk enough in the snow, eventually you’re going to kick a chunk of ice or a stump hidden under the snow. Buy the boots at least 1 size too large and 1 size too wide to allow room for extra socks and to allow room to wiggle your toes. Having room to wiggle your toes is important to assist blood circulation, which boosts warmth (cramped toes with poor circulation will get cold in a hurry). I recommend boots from Red Wing, which are hand-made right here in America. (I’ve had one of my three pairs of Red Wings now for 12 years, and I wore this pair daily in a manufacturing plant for six of those years. It is the most comfortable footwear I own). If you have spent a lot of time outdoors in the cold, then you know that your feet and toes will get cold before anything else, and are the hardest to warm-up once they are cold. I wear one pair of cotton athletic socks under a pair of wool socks under a pair of ski-socks. Ski socks are designed to be form-fitting (helps hold the other socks in place) and are padded to cushion your feet in ski boots. A little “trick” comes from my painter friend, who uses simple kitchen baggies to keep his feet warm. Put an oversized baggy over your socks and then go into your boots. The baggies will retain heat and add to waterproofing. This really works well for short durations with a lot of activity (working), or over long durations with little activity (hunting). Just be careful over long durations of heavy activity as the sweat moisture can build-up inside the bags and cause your feet to start pruning. One last suggestion is to buy an pair of thick, over-sized, waterproof, Thinsulate-lined gloves and a pair of thin, tight-fitting, waterproof, Thinsulate gloves to go inside. I never found any glove liners that really work all that well. By wearing two gloves at the same time, you get the benefits of additional lining and an added layer of waterproofing. Plus, if you need to use your fingers [for fine work], you can pull your hands out of the thick outer gloves without exposing them to the elements. Of course, all these layers may sound like overkill, but this was taking things to extreme temperatures. The nice thing about layers is that it is always easy to take a layer off if you get too warm. I hope this helps you stay warm and dry this winter. Also, please allow me the chance to say thank you and God bless for all the work you do. Besides buying bullion for years, I only started prepping in 8/07 when the credit markets first froze. I’ve been reading your web site daily for over a year, finished Patriots two months ago, and just finished your book on retreats. I sent a copy of Patriots to six close friends and family in the hopes that the light bulbs start going on. I know we’re probably in the eleventh hour, but I’m trying to have a retreat purchased by this fall and hope to get some help from others if they understand. This is a life changing experience and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all your work. My prayers are with the Memsahib. - Chris G. Jim, 1. First I lay the tire chain out on the ground in front of the wheel. I made a couple of wood blocks around 5" square and 21/2" thick and put one of these into the gap in the chains a couple of feet back from the front of the chain stretched out on the ground. Then I drive forward (this assumes you aren't stuck already) until the tire is over the block. This frees the chain from the tire and allows you much more slack. Don't put the block in the center of the chain run or you'll have to fight to connect both chains ends at the top of the tire. Much easier to drape one long end over and connect near the bottom of the tire. With regard to Peter H's suggestion of a hoe to dig out snow from under a car. I must admit I never thought of that. He is absolutely correct in that a regular shovel is useless. The angle of the shovel blade causes it to ride up into the bottom of the car rather than along the ground and snow shovels are too weak to shift hard snow and ice although they are perfect for powder snow if you start shoveling before the disturbed snow sets up hard. Kind regards to you and your Wife, - LRM Perth, Western Australia « Influenza Pandemic Update: |Main| Letter Re: Thoughts on Accumulating Silver » Friday July 31 2009Letter Re: Distance Traveling by Waterways
Jim, After reading LDM in Colorado's post, I had to e-mail and correct a few problems. While I know little of white water rafting, I do know about Personal Flotation Devices (PFDs). I was a Coast Guard Boarding Officer for many years, and I would like to correct some of his terminology. Unfortunately, some of his comments could place someone in danger. The rating system for PFDs is based on capabilities. Specifically, Type I: Provides 22 lbs of buoyancy and turns most unconscious victims face up in the water. The old "Mae West" PFDs referred to are not rated PFDs and do not meet the requirements for any type of PFD. Type II: 15.5 lbs of buoyancy turns some unconscious victims up in the water. These provide less buoyancy than Type Is, but they are less bulky and easier to work in. Type III: 15.5 lbs of buoyancy but does not make any effort to upright an unconscious victim. They are easier to wear than either type Is or IIs. Type IV: Throwable PFDs such as life rings and seat cushions. Type V: These are special purpose PFDs. They are usually either hybrid (meaning some buoyancy that can be augmented by an inflation), or automatically inflating PFDs, or even full-coveralls for working in stormy conditions. Type Vs have many advantages, but they have many drawbacks. First of all - use the right Type V for the task. A Type V PFD that requires manual inflation (by pulling a cord) is of little value to an unconscious person. Also - any PFD that can be inflated also has a greater incidence of failure. In regards to PFDs simpler is often better. If it is simply a matter of floating in the water, a Type I provides the most closed-call foam, keeps most victims upright, and keeps them floating high in the water - and they do it very simply. However, white water rafting requires more freedom of movement than what Type Is allow. That is why Type Vs are so popular. Hybrids are the easiest to wear for an extended period or time. Thanks for allowing me to make this correction. If you have a boat - you should have at least one Type IV, and one Type III (or II or I) for each person. In fact, Type Vs are only permitted on boats for specific circumstances - that's why they are Type Vs. They are designed for water skiing, or work coveralls, or white water rafting. But they are poor substitutes for general PFD needs. Here's a couple of links that might provide some clarification: From the Texas Department of of Parks and Wildlife Regards, - BES in Washington « Influenza Pandemic Update: |Main| Notes from JWR: » Thursday July 30 2009Here Comes Winter!, by Peter H.
My brother wrote me recently to ask what we do to prepare for our winters here in the inland Pacific Northwest. He lives in a warmer climate but has been reading about the global cooling underway. For the last two years our area has been colder longer and this last winter we had the most snow in over 100 years. Remembering that Boy Scout slogan, “Be prepared,” prudent people are already looking ahead for the winter soon to come. Here are my odds and ends to get your thinking processes going: Dress to Save Your Life Knit caps keep your head comfortable. If you are working outdoors and wear a really heavy fur Russian-type hat your head will probably sweat. Our winters aren't usually very cold, so something moderate is all we need. I keep my cap, gloves, Gargoyles (folding ear muffs), Yaktrax traction cleats (in a ZipLoc bag), and scarf (rarely used) all tucked away in my heavy coat at all times, and I can add them or put them away in the pockets as needed (your coat needs to have lots of pockets). I look like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, but I'm comfortable. Mostly we layer up: shirt, sweatshirt, windbreaker or shell. My really expensive jacket that Joy bought for me turns out to not be warm, but to be a good outer layer (breathable and all that). Not particularly durable, but otherwise good. (I'm looking to buy a denim insulated work coat this winter to replace mine that has holes.) Warm socks are a must. I've been buying GI-style socks from the local General store so I have enough for a whole week. They're quite thick. The warm socks I bought last year (not the GI-style) wore holes that I still need to darn. You can't have too many durable, warm socks. Warm gloves are a must, but they have to be waterproof. I use insulated leather work gloves that I've treated with SnowSeal or something like that (paraffin or seal oil) to protect the leather (I wouldn't use anything that sprays on). The "ski gloves" I have are warm and shed snow, but many of them aren't waterproof and the ones I've tried are definitely not durable. If you're going to ski they're fine. If you're going to work you need leather or an insulated synthetic that is durable. You'll also want glove liners (so get your gloves big enough). I bought some cheapo military-surplus-type wool liners. They give my gloves extra warmth and I can pull them out of the gloves to help them dry quicker. I have some really warm mittens, but I can't work in them. Putting liners in my regular insulated work gloves works better. Waterproof, high boots are essential. I used cheapo $9 rubber boots most of the winter. They're tall, taller than the snow usually, and absolutely waterproof. And they have really aggressive treads. I don't think breathable fabric is all that important. With each step the boots breathe up your pant leg... I also don't do a lot of walking in them, but working around the homestead, around fences and barbed wire, and turkey manure the inexpensive boots work great. Snow bibs (look like farmer's bib overalls) are cheap. You wear them under your coat. They're not so much warm as they are slick and the snow doesn't stick. They're not waterproof, so you CAN get them wet (which is bad) if you're not careful. But the snow falls off and keeps your legs dry, and they're an extra layer on your legs. I think I wore mine once or twice last year. I can easily tolerate cooler legs when my core is warm. I don't have leggings or whatever they're called. I just pull my pants over the tops of the boots, or pull the snow bib legs over my boots. YakTrax are essential. Falls are devastating. Working in cold weather, unless you keep changing clothes as your chores change, you're probably going to get at least a little sweaty. Some chores make you hot, some don't. Unless you're going to be going in and out (which would not be energy efficient) to continuously change clothes, then at some point your clothes are going to get wet and / or sweaty. You must have a plan for hanging the clothes over or near some heat source to dry them. Having a second set of socks and gloves and pants is important in case you have to go outside before everything's dry. You have to plan your excursions outside. Take all the tools you need, etc. so you're not going in and out. You also have to have a plan to time yourself outside. You'll be warm but wet and not realize it. An hour of chores outside is probably plenty, then come in to hydrate and dry out. Plan to hydrate while you're outdoors too if you're working hard (don't eat the snow - it lowers your core temp). With thick socks the rubber boots are comfortable, not very heavy, absolutely waterproof, have great tread, durable, and quick to get on and off when I do have to go in and out of the house (very nice). I have a pair of very heavy winter boots, rated to below zero. But they're heavy and hard to lace on. I've got them if I ever need to climb Mount Everest... We keep the boots in a little plastic "boot tray" near the door so that the melting snow doesn't get everywhere and make a mess. The rubber boots are also essential in the spring melt-off when there's four inches of slush everywhere... Regular snow boots with tiny holes that doesn't matter in snow will spring leaks in slush... I Sno Seal You should be able to find wool socks and glove liners at many Internet shops. I reserve my wool gear for the really cold weather. I also have a full heavy rain suit (in case we ever get monsoon-type weather - which happened once! - and I have to care for the livestock). You could put on some fairly warm clothes and the rain suit over it and be great in the snow. The biggest issue with snow is not having it melt on you and get you wet. And the rain suit would be an extra insulating layer. I have a set of YakTrax that I leave on my rubber boots (extra large), and a set I keep in my jacket I wear to the office if the ground gets treacherous. The deluxe Yaktrax have a strap over the top that definitely helps keep them on in heavy snow. You can improvise a strap like that with baling wire or cord or velcro. You probably need more than one strap over the top. A second strap that goes from the heel up and around the top of the foot will help in the back. Have the Right Tools Ready If you slide off and you have a good tow strap (not a chain) you might be able to get pulled out. The strap is springy and allows the towing vehicle to get a little inertia going before the strap pulls tight. They may not be able to get enough traction to pull you out, but that bit of inertia might be enough to do the job. I would never try a questionable tow unless I did my best to dig the car out first. Even a tow truck might have trouble pulling a vehicle out of a snow-filled ditch unless the car was dug out first. Compacted snow is very hard and heavy. You really never know when a really bad snowstorm is going to hit. The weather service is terrible about being accurate, especially regards timing. We've been warned that bad weather was coming and it is often early or late by 8 or more hours. We pack a winter survival bag with extra coats, a blanket, food, water, and a small catalytic heater and extra propane canisters. We carry water in a mylar bag (old wine bag) packed in a box so it can expand and contract as it freezes and thaws. With your hill you might consider parking somewhere else nearby. Unless you can keep your driveway ice-free you might not like sliding down the driveway and into the street uncontrollably. Have a good supply of de-ice in advance (which was hard to find around here when all the trouble started). Some are better than others. We use a lot of plain unscented clay cat litter on the steps and sidewalk. It works very well. Better than de-ice for concrete and wood. And cheap! We buy windshield wiper fluid that also contains de-ice. It works really well unless the temps are very low. You should keep a spray bottle of it in the house and take it outside to spray any vehicle windows that got snow or ice on them. If you think there could be lots of snow then you might want to consider the rating of your home's roof. I'm guessing that no homes in your area can take much snow (why should they?). Getting on the roof to shovel it off is bloody dangerous. It's not worth dying for, or being crippled for. If you've got the money, buy a Snow Razor from MinnSnowta ($150) - they'll last forever. We mainly use plastic snow shovels with straight handles. Snow gets to be very heavy and the fancy curved handles fail sooner (I think). The plastic blade is strong enough for most uses. We use a little plastic snow shovel (probably made for kids) to shovel the stairs because a regular shovel is too big. Get a plastic sled so you can drag the snow away from your driveway and house. Many years we started with a snow pile by the driveway, but by the end of winter it was huge and in the way! Just drag it a little distance, and it won't be in your way or the snowplow's way if you have to get your driveway plowed. We also have steel square tip shovels (2 sizes) to dig up the ice that inevitably forms in places when the snow gets too deep. We also use the mattock to break up ice on the ground (you should have a mattock anyway, good for lots of things). Many years we've had 2 - 4" of hard ice that forms under the snow from cycles of melting and snowing... |We keep a big coffee can of cat litter and a can of deice in the house by the front door. Many days we couldn't safely get out of the house or get to the garage to spread the cat litter. We also have some car lock de-icer sprays, but have only needed them once or twice in 21 years. Five gallons maybe you can handle, but over and over and you start to get a moisture problem in the garage. We've actually had it rain inside - the moisture condensed on the Tyvek lining of the roof and rained out on everything - not just where the car was, but all over the inside of the garage. Our "solution" is to only drive one car in the winter when the weather's really bad and to use a floor squeegee to push the water and slush back outside. (While we're on the subject, one winter the ice formed a dam on both sides of the driveway in front of the garage and the water level of melting snow actually started to come in the garage. I had to take the mattock and dig a trench - in the cold and snow after work - down one side of the garage to drain the water away! Try that with a regular steel shovel!) When we've had a bunch of snow, with more on the way, I often drive up and down the driveway compacting it. I drive to the left, to the right, and in the center to make as wide of a compacted area as possible (taking maybe 10 minutes). Our front wheel drive cars can drive in snow up to the undercarriage. You can drive on compacted snow, but if you've got snow that is deeper than your undercarriage it tends to build up in front of your vehicle while you're trying to get to the road and will probably high-center you. You can shovel / snow blow it out of the way or compact it down so you can drive on it. The next time your driveway's plowed they'll get most of the ice that forms from the compacting so it won't get too deep. Everything Else Be Prepared. Trust God. We can do both. - Peter H. « Influenza Pandemic Update: |Main| Letter Re: Shoot or Don't Shoot--Moral Implications of the Split-Second Decision to Take a Life » Wednesday July 29 2009Letter Re: An Outward Bound Prepper's Perspective
Hi Jim, If you think of all the things you can do or make out of a 5-inch long piece of bailing wire you will get your mind going in the right direction. Some of the uses for a heavy duty paper clip in a wilderness survival situation are; make a fishing hook, make a fish or small animal spear using a stick, make a crude small animal trap or snare, make a needle for sewing, mini soldering iron, pick locks, make a compass, use to start a fire, cauterize wounds, hang meat/fish over a fire, fix various objects, fasten items, etc. If you go on the web and Google something like, wilderness survival paper clips, you will find page after page of sites listing the various uses, sites listing paper clips in their survival kits, or sites willing to sell you survival kits with paper clips. There is a lot of information out there to weed through. For those interested, I’ve included a few hyperlinks to sites that go into detail on some of the more practical uses such as making a compass or starting a fire instead of writing the directions out here. Paper clips are something most everyone has around and they are lightweight, small, and have a ton of uses. I can’t count the times I’ve used them over the years for a wide variety of reasons. They’re pretty close on the list to a small spool of duct tape. One of the other things I was going to mention pertains to using trash bags for waterproofing items such as backpacks or anything else you don’t want to get wet. Trash compactor bags work much much better. They are made of a heavier gauge plastic and are square at the bottom. They fit perfectly in most backpacks or day packs because they are rectangular. They work really well for storing or protecting most anything that has dimension. Also, great for an emergency rain poncho because people are not flat like normal trash bags but have a tendency to have some width to them. Trash compactor bags are not to be confused with Contractor trash bags. Hopefully this answers some of the questions or at least directs people to where they can find more detailed information. The links are listed below. Take care, - Sharon « Letter Re: Shoot or Don't Shoot--Moral Implications of the Split-Second Decision to Take a Life |Main| Jim's Quote of the Day: » Tuesday July 28 2009Gear Up -- Appropriate and Redundant Technologies for Prepared Families
I frequently stress the importance of well-balanced preparedness in my writings. All too often, I've seen people that go to extremes, to the point that these extremes actually detract from the ability to survive a disaster situation. These range from the "all the gear that I'll need to survive is in my backpack" mentality to the "a truckload of this or that" fixation. But genuine preparedness lies in comprehensive planning, strict budgeting, and moderation. Blowing your entire preparedness budget on just one category of gear is detrimental to your overall preparedness. Another common mistake that I see among my consulting clients is an over-emphasis on either very old technologies or on the "latest and greatest" technologies. In the real world, preparedness necessitates having a bit of both. At the Rawles Ranch we have both 19th century technology (like hand-powered tools) and a few of the latest technologies like passive IR intrusion detection (Dakota Alerts), photovoltaics, and electronic night vision. My approach is to pick and choose the most appropriate technologies that I can maintain by myself, but to always have backups in the form of less exotic or earlier, albeit less-efficient technologies. For example, my main shortwave receiver is a Sony ICF-SW7600GR. But in the event of EMP, I also a have a pair of very inexpensive Kaito shortwaves Here is my approach to preparedness gear, in a nutshell
If you are serious about preparedness, then I recommend that you take a similar approach. « Letter Re: Distance Traveling by Waterways |Main| Community Disaster Recovery--Asking the Right People the Right Questions » Monday July 27 2009Letter Re: Your Dog's G.O.O.D. BagHello Mr. Rawles; Thank you for helping to make people aware. Best Regards, - Glennis JWR Replies: Those were great suggestions. In my opinion, the other items that you should put in your dog's pack is a pair of Tick Tweezers, and a sealed bottle of a strong flea and chigger repellant « Influenza Pandemic Update: |Main| Letter Re: Your Dog's G.O.O.D. Bag » Letter Re: Distance Traveling by Waterways
Hello Jim and Family, JWR Replies: Thanks for that reminder. As your children grow older, be sure to get progressively larger life vests for them. You can even get a K-9 PFD Life Jacket. « Economics and Investing: |Main| Letter Re: Recommendations on Discreet Self Defense Weapons and Training » Thursday July 16 2009Three Letters Re: N95 Masks for Influenza Protection
Dear Jim and Family, James, Jim;
First let's look at fit, because they are designed as a one-size-fits-all consumer product they obviously don't fit every face, and they tent to gap around the edges, especially if making facial movement like talking. Then you may be asking "Why buy them if they don't work"? Well the truth of the matter is that they do work, if you use them correctly and for the right reasons. The inexpensive N95 masks come in boxes of 20. That is so that you change them often. With heavy use, i.e. heavy breathing, they should be changed at least once an hour. The greatest utility for these masks is to help you to not touch your nose and mouth with your hands! Although the Flu virus can be airborne, you are far more likely to get it by touching a contaminated surface like a door knob, stair rail, or a grocery cart handle [and then unconsciously touching your face]. So for that purpose they do a great job. There are more expensive disposable masks on the market, (Those made by Triosyn are the best in my opinion, although very expensive and hard to find.) Don't count out the great standby, the N95, I stand by them, but only if they are used correctly! - Kory « Letter Re: Water Storage and Filtration Preparedness Pays Off |Main| H1N1 Influenza: A Cytokine Storm Conclusion, But Still More Questions Than Answers » Monday July 13 2009Letter Re: Recent Experience with an N95 Protective Mask
Dear Mr. Rawles- More prepped than ever for the swine flu, - Heather JWR Replies: In my experience, it takes time to acclimate to wearing a respirator mask. There is no substitute for hours in a mask. Particularly for a full-face military mask, and even more so for a full MOPP suit, limited field of vision, dehydration, claustrophobia and sensory deprivation are well-known effects, but heat build-up up is also an issue, particularly in summer weather. In full-face masks, being deprived of prescription lenses is also an issue, unless you have a prescription lens inserts. (BTW, these hard-to-find inserts are available from JRH Enterprises.) Also be particularly wary of dehydration. Even with masks that include a drinking tube, most wearers have a tendency to drink less than usual. The bottom line: Practice wearing a mask regularly, in a variety of activities. « The Case for Accumulating and (Eventually) Using Silver Coins |Main| Note from JWR: » Thursday July 9 2009Survey Results: Your Favorite Books on Preparedness, Self-Sufficiency, and Practical SkillsIn descending order of frequency, the 78 readers that responded to my latest survey recommended the following non-fiction books on preparedness, self-sufficiency, and practical skills: The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery (Far and away the most often-mentioned book. This book is an absolute "must" for every well-prepared family!) The Foxfire Book series (in 11 volumes, but IMHO, the first five are the best) Where
There Is No Dentist "Rawles on Retreats and Relocation" Making
the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook The "Rawles Gets You Ready" preparedness course Crisis Preparedness Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Home Storage and Physical Survival Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times by Steve Solomon Tappan
on Survival Boston's
Gun Bible Seed
to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners Survival
Guns Boy Scouts Handbook: The First Edition, 1911 (Most readers recommend getting pre-1970 editions.) All
New Square Foot Gardening When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency Back
to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills, Third Edition Preparedness Now!: An Emergency Survival Guide (Expanded and Revised Edition) Putting
Food By First
Aid (American Red Cross Handbook) Responding To Emergencies Making
the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearney (Available for free download.) Cookin'
with Home Storage Root
Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables Stocking Up: The Third Edition of America's Classic Preserving Guide The
American Boy's Handybook of Camp Lore and Woodcraft Emergency
Food Storage & Survival Handbook by Peggy Layton Seed
to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss Five Acres and Independence: A Handbook for Small Farm Management Essential Bushcraft The Survivor book series by Kurt Saxon. Many are out of print in hard copy, but they are all available on DVD. Here, I must issue a caveat lector ("reader beware"): Mr. Saxon has some very controversial views that I do not agree with. Among other things he is a eugenicist. How to Stay Alive in the Woods by Bradford Angier The New Organic Grower by Eliot Coleman Tom Brown Jr.'s series of books, especially:
Total
Resistance Ditch Medicine: Advanced Field Procedures For Emergencies Living Well on Practically Nothing The Secure Home Outdoor Survival Skills The Last Hundred Yards: The NCO's Contribution to Warfare Camping & Wilderness Survival: The Ultimate Outdoors Book by Paul Tawrell Engineer Field Data (US Army FM 5-34) --Available online free of charge, with registration, but I recommend getting a hard copy. preferably with the heavy-duty plastic binding. Great Livin' in Grubby Times Just in Case Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearney (Available for free download.) How to Survive Anything, Anywhere: A Handbook of Survival Skills for Every Scenario and Environment | |
” shows a a good example of that.)
as well as some not recommended expedients like shaving cream and Simple Green. Like weapon selection, everyone also has their own idea for cleaning and lubricating weapons, so at the end of this article I will list several good, proven brands, and let you experiment for yourself!
, and a combination 
are absolute "musts"!] Don't get in a hurry unless there is a threat to life. Be hyper cautious, be very aware of your surroundings and things that can go wrong. Don’t toil alone. Make sure you have a clear path to beat a hasty retreat if things go wrong. Wear those gloves, safety glasses, boots and maybe a hard hat.
) was to "keep your principles public and your actions private".
with most of the parts and tools to fix and maintain your stove even on extended outings. - David in Israel
, rucksacks and various pouches, flat earth-tone colors are almost as effective as a printed camouflage pattern. I agree these solid color items are less likely to attract attention when walking down the street in "normal " times. If need be, you could always spray paint a few blotches and streaks of contrasting color, after the balloon goes up. OBTW, I avoid buying black nylon gear just as much as a I do red or blue, since solid black is not a color that is often found in nature. Remember to stock up on some cans of truly flat (no gloss) brown and green spray paint!
) [JWR Adds: Per FAA regulations, edged weapons may only be carried in checked baggage--not in carry-on bags,.] 
map book from DeLorme. [JWR Adds: These books are a key tool for "Get Out of Dodge" (
may be an indispensable friend of last resort. Before taking such extreme measures, however, consider that cutting the last link on a chain on such a gate is a Federal crime! Bolt cutters are a crucial tool that every well-prepared family should own, for many purposes.]
by Chris McNab. Although it is titled "for boys" and has pictures of boys in the book, I think it is highly appropriate for girls as well. Every child should know how to take care of themselves in survival situations. 
were such bad shots. ;-)
and 
.
, for example. Books to fill an entire bookcase. The Boy Scout Field Book sits right there next to the military survival manuals, as do 
or the U.S. Army survival manual. I have them and have read them. They do cover security problems, but then don’t cover other topics. Alas, there appear to be no “perfect” manuals, and the Boy Scout Field Book is no exception. But it’s not a bad beginning. And so I was beginning the journey even before I knew that I was. 
, which uses virtually all fuel (unleaded, white gas, kerosene, diesel, and maybe even corn oil). I was heavily into backpacking when we were stationed in Hawaii in the late 1970s, and still have all the gear. After having one knee replacement and hedging doing another, I’ll not be backpacking if I can help it. Nevertheless, I have two bug-out bags with essentials in them, ready to hit the trail if need be. I’ve saved up and bought two good 
, or other similar outdoor recreation brands - very comfortable). If properly layered with an outer wind and water proof blocking layer, it is very effective insulation. 
my gloves and my work boots (cheapo Big 5 high-tops). You rub the stuff all over them and put them in a warm oven or run a hair dryer over them to melt the sealant into the leather. Just rubbing it in isn't enough. Read the instructions!
and a trusty old 
, and biodiesel compatible vehicles)
and 
are your allies.
as well for the water as most dogs would waste a lot of water drinking from a bottle. I have seen these fold up travel bowls for sale at Wal-Mart. In real cold areas a dog coat is good if your dog is mostly an indoor dog as they are not acclimated to the cold. Even if they are, in some areas it can get real cold outside at night. We bought our dog’s coat at 
on your dog's paws.] Campmor also sells a roll up dog bed/pad that can provide thermal cushioning or you could use a piece of ensolite pad. If you take care of your dog they will live better and longer and be a better companion and protector for you. 
. Carry it in three thicknesses of Ziploc bags, just in case of leaks. 
and wearing them. As an 11-year veteran career firefighter and sergeant in the Army National Guard, I felt I needed to inform your readers of one glaring life and death point about those masks that is being missed: You need to be fit tested for any mask, the word mask is a misnomer, they are respirators, if they don't fit right, they won't work. When it comes to diseases don't accept anything less than a 100% fit. Not all masks work for all people, I'm sure you and your wife aren't the same size, for example. Also, if you go on the 
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